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Crossfire

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This is the cheapest cover I've ever done, but August is DONE. 

MATURE CONTENT WARNING THERE AT THE END. ALSO YEAH I QUOTED A TAYLOR SWIFT SONG I'M A DORK I DON'T CARE 


                                                                                                                                                                   August pt 3

***

I said, “No one has to know what we do.”

His hands are in my hair, his clothes are in my room

And his voice is a familar sound, nothing lasts forever

But this is getting good now

***

Travis was under the impression that the day was still wholly salvageable. Yes Double Up’s horrible finish had been deflating, yes the discovery of the knee chip was disappointing but there’d been old rumor about it that he had consciously dismissed after the filly won big last time out, and yes now he had no three year old filly runner. But he had a winner in Eminence and the favorite in the Travers. And for the Kings Bishop he had not the favorite, but a very good colt or so said everyone.

Cryptology was a very good colt. The true extent of his talent was yet hidden, but it revealed itself by a few inches that hot late August afternoon. He was up against a decent group of three year olds. The real sprinters would race after the King’s Bishop in the Forego, but out of the pack Cryptology faced in his first start back would be an eventual Breeders’ Cup winner.

Cryptology broke well and settled midpack in the same field of six. He rated well and listened well under Hallie Jeffries, who was notably sore about her loss in the Personal Ensign by a head thirty minutes earlier. The consolation prize, she’d keep the ride for Killoran on the gray filly, wasn’t good enough. The front runner, a chestnut colt, set a quick pace but Cryptology just opened his stride and waited. He waited as the field shifted along the backstretch, and then shifted again around the turn, hanging onto third or fourth the majority of the race. And then when he felt the tell-tale tightening on his mouth, he sprung out with such a quick turn of foot that grandstand let out a collective gasp.

In a half a furlong he was out in front by two, and then with a furlong left he extended that to four, and then six, and then for a final seven and a half. He came back as easy as he’d gone, ears pricked and calm.

Travis was of the opinion that no matter what happened in the Travers, his day had been salvaged.

***

Quick Wit was back.

His personality had been back for a while, loud and self-exclamatory, but the rest of had caught up. He was still a touch thin for Jonah’s liking, but when he posted his last work before the Travers, a bullet five panels in 59:21, Jonah felt fairly confident that the colt deserved his strong odds come Saturday. The field was strong, after a soft summer, it felt appropriate that the big hitters come out to play for the fall campaign. Pharaoh, the colt Paranormal had faced over the winter in Aqueduct, was back and in peak form. And Archaic, off his narrow loss to Golden Age in the Haskell, was primed and ready. Wit had taken the Belmont with ease, but he’d have to fight for the Travers and get his number of G1 wins up to three.

“We’ve got it,” Tyler said in the paddock.

“We’ve got it,” Travis echoed, two for three on Travers Day.

“I think we got it,” Jonah said with a nod as Dean nodded in agreement as he tightened the colt’s girth in the paddock stall.  

 Tyler had breezed the colt in his last work and had come off feeling confident. With a deep closer like Pharaoh and an excellent stalker like Archaic the plan was to convince Wit to rate – for the first time – and eat easy fractions in the front.

Wit looked good in the paddock, he didn’t rear or spin or kick, although he pinned his ears and screamed challenges at the other colts it felt to Jonah like strategy rather than compulsion. Jonah watched as the bay English colt got a bit fretful. Wit was bigger than he was, badder and a hundred and ten percent confident in his masculinity.  Once he figured the whole racing thing out the only animal capable of beating him was Marzanna, a filly, and in so far as Wit was concerned that meant he was the supreme, dominate, alpha male in the equine world.

Pharaoh paid him no mind. Jonah pinned him as the horse to beat. Wit’s version of easy fractions would be twenty-four second quarters, which was a hell of a lot faster than Archaic was used to. Pharaoh, on the other hand, would eat up those fast fractions some twelve lengths off the pace, swing around the final turn and flip on that good closing kick of his. Wit would be able to draw away, but his final kick would lack the energy of Pharoah’s and it was very possible he could lose to the dark bay son of Pioneerof the Nile. If Archaic could eat the fast fractions from about fifth position and still have the energy to make a run, he would press Wit around the turn for home which would further burn down Wit’s reserves because he wasn’t likely to let the other colt coast up in his space.

Jonah’s hope then was that Archaic didn’t fire. Wit could keep his twenty-four second quarters till the three quarters pole and then dig in. No matter what Pharaoh was going to end up contesting Wit’s lead, but you had to hope he hit a snag along his run and was just a second too late to get his head in front. That was best case scenario.

The field was seven, a horse Paranormal had beaten in the Dwyer and a third place finisher from the Belmont was the next horses worth mentioning.  The three year old colt pool was stacked up top; Archaic, Pharaoh, Quick Wit, Golden Age, and Paranormal, but it wasn’t a very long list. Not this year, at least. The depth lay in the older colt division, as Figs and Gabe would experience in the coming Woodward. They all warmed up. Wit looked good. His size made him look visibly impressive next to the others. His antics, trying to push the pony over, shaking his big head and pawing at the ground with the elegance of a dressage horse, were comforting rather than off putting. The Belmont winner was back. He had to be shoved in the gate by the assistant starters, which Jonah knew they didn’t appreciate but the colt schooled the gate without issue in the mornings. He just enjoyed being a pain in the ass on race day.

They broke. Wit broke first and fast. Pharaoh broke after the pack.

“Yes,” Travis muttered under his breath.

Jonah gave a small nod. Pharaoh was a closer, and a good one, but he’d broken a good five seconds after the rest of the pack had left. Too far off the pace and he’d never make it. He had to chase to the first turn. And Wit was blistering. Jonah could see through his glasses that Tyler had him rating, his hands were soft and low over the colt’s withers. But it was fucking fast. Tom Durkin exclaimed at the first quarter that the colt had gone 22:46. In the back Pharaoh had managed to get fourteen lengths off Wit. In fourth Archaic sat.

“He needs to slow the fuck down,” Travis said.

“He’s easy yet, he’s relaxed, look at him,” Jonah replied.

“Someone is going to catch him in the stretch.”

Suddenly, Archaic fell back to fifth. Hallie pushed her hands up the bay colt’s neck, but he was stuck. Pharaoh managed to get up to eleven lengths off the pace.

“Archaic has sunk back! Half in 44:52, Quick Wit in first, Watchdog in second, Crème De Crop third, Superego in fourth and Archaic holding onto fifth. ” Tom Durkin shouted out through the loudspeaker, “Pharaoh is ten lengths off the leader!”  

“Fuck,” Travis said. Sienna gripped his arm.

Despite his human connections’ anxiety in the grandstand, Wit was blissful. He felt excellent. The little man on top had applied with very reassuring pressure on his mouth that had allowed him to rock against his rubber bit and find a very effortless way of going. He’d always been a pounder and punisher of dirt, but now he coasted. He felt nothing yet but the rhythmic and relaxing process of his gallop, muscles moving without pain. There was a colt on his flank, which he usually didn’t like, but he was breathing so heavy that Wit knew enough by now to know he’d fall away. The one directly behind him was already hitching up his stride.  The one next to him was already fighting. He’d be gone too. That big bay colt he’d beaten in the paddock. Wit was an idiot. What he was, was pure instinct. Instinct didn’t lie. Instinct told him that colt was on the edge of being shaken, all Wit had to do was point out his obvious superiority. That horse was done for.

Wit who could not count (some horses could, in the sense that they could recognize the different between one horse up to about three or four, any more numerous than that and it simply became a herd or a pack) but he remembered there was another colt. That colt was nearly black and big and notable because he was not upset in the least by Wit’s antics. Wit was under the vague impression that he’d raced against him before. That horse had yet to be accounted for.

As they approached the turn Wit switched his lead and a burst of energy shivered through him. He moved away from the heavy breather just a bit and let the little man on top tuck him against the rail. Most horses hated the rail, but Jonah conditioned all his horses to be comfortable with it and to know how to run straight. A race could be lost by a messy run down the homestretch.

Hooked into the rail Wit stretched out a bit now, his coasting became more of a charge and he felt his shoulders start. It wasn’t an ache that came after the race; it was just a heightened awareness of their usage. Wit, who had nearly three hundred and sixty degrees of vision, did not see that dark calm horse, but he felt in the earth a thundering. He was coming.

The rail straightened and the track with it. Wit saw him then, more the color of the track than the color he’d been in the paddock. He was wide and several lengths back yet, but he was coming and coming faster than Wit would be able to go once he got him. The little man on top waved the stick, confirming what Wit felt. Wit bore down and began a thundering of his own.

“And Quick Wit has found another gear! He’s opening his lead on Superego by a length, now two, but here’s Pharaoh charging up the homestretch wide. And he’s got Watchdog down, and he’s come down on Quick Wit, but Quick Wit won’t have it!”

Quick Wit, would certainly not have it, and won by two lengths.

***

Luc was so high off his two G1 wins on Travers Day that he hadn’t even paid attention to the big race itself, not until Ethan Tyler returned in a haze of glory and Hallie kicked her locker door near off. Frankie who’d picked up the ride on Superego came in shrugging and grinning straight to Esperenza.  Rami Marchand, Pharaoh’s jockey, came back quiet but not too disappointed and sat down beside Luc.  They’d struck up a friendship, having rode all winter against one another on Pharaoh and Paranormal respectively.

“Good race?”

Rami laughed, “You didn’t watch?”

“Nah, got distracted. Not my division.”

“For now. You know what they say about your colt, Breeders’ Cup.”

“Yeah well, they say a lot of shit,”

They shared a laugh about the constant maelstrom of change that was their life, rode their last races, and left the track. As Luc turned the key of his 911 he decided that yeah, he was going to ask Maggie Lawson out.

***

Travis felt fucking great.

Three wins, Travis wins the fucking Travers – that’s what everyone had been saying all night at the party Sienna had thrown him. He liked the fucking ring of it too. His night had been a blissful sequel to his day.

Then Kye Westbrook showed up.

“Congratulations,” Westbrook said.

“Thank you. Your colt tried hard today, did he come out alright?”

“Well enough. He’ll be sharper come the fall, and if not we have Set.”

Yes, Kye Westbrook certainly did. The colt was set to go off in the Woodward, which was now quite the field with Leer, Dajeon, Jonah’s own Figlio Ribelle, and Golden Age. As much of a showstopper as today had been the Woodward would set the precedent going into the fall season.

“Yes well, good luck.”

“You as well.”

Westbrook floated off without concern, his date a black haired European woman that Travis was fairly certain was a supermodel (Sienna later confirmed this for him). Their conversation was innocuous, polite even, but Travis found his night stale.

Then his cellphone rang.

Within the half-hour he found himself pacing the waiting room of Rood and Riddle, Sienna mascara stained in her beautiful cocktail dress, heels in hand, muck boots on, curled up on a chair. Dean was across the room, talking with Jonah, who hadn’t said enough.

Then the vet came out.

“Well, she’s alive, by about an inch.”

They all shared a sigh of relief and walked quietly behind the vet to the stall where Double Up – had she always been so small? – stood against the wall looking more dazed and confused than any horse Travis had ever seen. Her leg, the left fore with the low knee chip, was bandaged up. That hadn’t been the problem.

The filly had had a bad reaction to the anesthesia. The surgeons lost her heartbeat twice, tried to bring her around only to have her nearly snap her neck flailing, to put her back under, lose her for three seconds shy of pronouncing her dead, to bring her around in the pool where she couldn’t snap any bones. And now she stood, looking as far gone as you’d expect, wrapped in two horse rugs, mane and tail still dripping.

When she realized people, her people, were staring at her she pricked her ears and let out the most pitiful whinny. Sienna clasped his hand and began to cry. He wrapped his arm around her and despite the horror the poor filly had endured and the present trauma lingering over all of them, internally he felt more connected, alive, than he had since that poor gelding had broken down. They stayed for another twenty minutes and then left. By the time they reached their car Sienna had long managed to cease crying, but she still held his hand as though without it she would fall.

“Let her come home, Travis, please.”

He nodded.

***

“It seems a big leap,” Travis commented as he stood beside Dean and Jonah in Saratoga’s paddock on the month’s finale watching the lanky white colt do his best to lick Estefan.

“His workouts have improved drastically. Mal’s breeze with him was his best,” Dean replied. Jonah nodded in agreement.

Luc Martin, jogged out with the rest of his fellow jocks for the G2 Anticipation Stakes over the Saratoga turf at distance of 8.5f. Gavs was sitting at better odds than he deserved, 9-1, because of his antics and color not his record. The best colt in the field was a son of English Channel who had a maiden win over this course at this distance named Mor Breizh, who had the luck of being jockeyed by turf expert Hallie Jeffries.

All that said, in the end, the facts didn’t matter. Gavs had decided to show up.

He broke slow, but steady and made consistent headway on the leaders. Mor Breizh stalked carefully, tight against the rail. And around the final turn for home his white colt exploded. Mor Breizh found a spot, hooked through it, and took the lead. The two colts, red and white, warred against one another, but Gavs got his neck out first.

He came back green, flecked with chunks of dirt.

Jonah clasped Travis on the shoulder, “We’re going to the Breeders’ Cup.”

***

The mare was pregnant.

Himself hadn’t escaped since thanks to his new seven foot fencing, but Alison watched how he eyed up the slat fencing as though he was plotting. Surreptitious, the mare, plodded along without concern for her occupied uterus as she had for much of her life.  The filly, perfect and dark and inconceivably lovely, had her fate decided for her. She would go to sale, and likely bring enough to make up for the accidental foal Alison would likely be unable to sell.

She had talked to Jonah this morning, after the due congratulations for his successful weekend a decision was made. Himself would ship to Keeneland, where half of Jonah’s string was headed in a few days for the fall meet, at the end of September. It was a pleasant conversation and at the end Alison felt more optimistic than she had since the pair of horses’ tryst was discovered.

Then Hallie Jeffries called. Alison couldn’t recall giving the jock her number, but she didn’t ask how she came about it.

“How is he?”

She sounded drunk, but Alison was polite.

“He’s doing well. Nearly at weight. He did have a run in with one of my mares.”

“She okay?”

“Pregnant, but fine.”

On the other end Hallie laughed, “You got lucky, you’re going to get a sneak peek at what he’s going to do.”

Hallie hung up without a goodbye, and Alison was left feeling unsettled. She paced around the kitchen, made lunch for the girls, pondered on her own swelling stomach, and decided to up the filly’s reserve for Keeneland by another hundred thousand.

***

Hallie was going to rehab.  September 1st seemed as good a day as any, and with what looked to be one hell of a fall she had to fix herself. She imagined the day out, she’d win the Woodward on Set and then Maria – her agent – would drop her ass at the place and she’d shake clean over the course of the week as everyone moved to Belmont. Perfect.

Of course that meant she had to have one last go around, and August 31st was the night. She went to her favorite bar and found, of all people, Travis McCailen sitting at the bar.  Ah right, he’d won that turf stakes, beat her. She was already drunk enough to forget. She was also drunk enough to go over to him.

He looked surprised to see her, though she couldn’t figure out why it was common knowledge this was her haunt, not his. Without a word between them he bought her a drink. It’d been fucking odd between them, that night in his hotel room came back to her and paired up with that moment in the paddock and rehab ahead of her Hallie was feeling oddly sentimental.

“It wasn’t all that bad, was it?” she said after she took a sip of the Guinness he’d bought her.

“Yes,” he said, not looking at her, “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“You used to buy me cheese fries.”

“It was the only way I could get you to stop bitching about your leg,” he replied, coasting a look at her. He’d grown up good looking hadn’t he?

“I got your wedding invite. Consider this my RSVP.”

“You’re going?”

“Why wouldn’t I? Open bar, excuse to wear a dress, getting to bear witness to the demise of your youth. Sounds like a fucking time and a half.”

He shook his head and tried to frown, but his mouth betrayed him and went in the opposite direction.

“Yeah you think I’m funny, even if you hate me,” she said before taking a gulp.

“I don’t hate you.”

“That’s a lie.”

He was quiet for a moment. She was tracing the line of his jaw to neck to collarbones – he’d his white shirt open a button and sleeves rolled up – as though she’d never see him again.

“I do, hate you.”

“There we go,” she said with a grin, “Admittance is one of the steps.”

And then he said something, very, very unexpected.

“I’d have married you.”

She dismissed it immediately with an eye roll, but he kept talking in spite of it.

“Not then, obviously. It hadn’t synthesized that then, but you know when you’re staring down the thing itself you put a lot together.”

“As if you could make a decent woman out of me.”

“I wouldn’t have had to do anything. You’d have done that all yourself. I didn’t care. I don’t care. I know more than all the rest, don’t I?”

Well now he had her shut up. She nursed the beer and stared at the cash register behind the bar, watching as the bartenders logged number after number, the green neon of the type flashing and morphing.  Then he slipped a hand about hers and she found herself up and out the back way. He didn’t say anything and she felt numb, but she walked the back corridors of Saratoga with him, two hands clutched around his one.

Everything felt sharp, as though she was in fact sober and not seven or eight drinks deep. The finale of August was cool, fall waiting and ready for its reign. They ended up at the same hotel as before, maybe he kept a room all meet. But once they got inside his room the whole thing changed.

He kissed her, pressed her against the door. He’d let her dictate things last time, her comfort zone, but it’d never been them. She’d trusted him, implicitly, and he always liked to be in charge, and she wanted the thing she feared the most. He was gentle and slow, undressing her with care but intent. She found herself incapable of doing anything but reaction and sound. By the time they made it to the bed she was stretched so thin she felt certain she’d break. Maybe that was what he was pushing for, he’d come close so many times that summer. Maybe he wanted to finish her off, consider her done, completed, conquered before he walked down the aisle. Maybe he had to, for him.

The alternative was worse. Which was that he cared and she’d truly fucked up the one thing that could have saved her, the weight of which she felt pressing down. He brought her near to climax several times, but moved on without consideration to her pleas, and then he eased in. She hated, feared, reviled being anywhere but on top unless, of course, it was him. And he knew it.

She had the vague awareness that what they were having wasn’t any form of sex she’d ever had, endured, or suffered through. She clung to him as though she were some hapless virgin and he was so careful and gentle it was almost painful.

After she still clung to him, numb, as he ran his hands through her hair, about the edge of her face, down the lines of her skinny, suffering body.

“Sleep,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

She did, but in the morning she woke up alone. And for the first time in a long time, Hallie cried.

                                                                                                                                                                      ***

I'm so mean to Hallie that sometimes I feel bad about it. The horse is NO ONE, but we can imagine its Crypt or Quick Wit since they both were so excellent this month. 

OBVIOUSLY the song lyrics to TSwift, let me join your girl posse

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slanciato's avatar
partial to crypt. go crypt :heart:

also omg hallie ;3; i always feel bad for her but that also means that you write her so well that it does make me feel something!