Participants:
| Scene Title | New Kind Of Mad |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | To follow a trend, Raith asks Gabriel for a favour. |
| Date | June 29, 2010 |
Old Dispensary: Kitchen
Three days gone, and no new information on Eileen. At least, none that Raith has come across. That's part of tonight's 'festivities.' The other part, well….
Sooner or later, Gabriel is going to get Raith's message, and will hopefully come wandering over to the stove for a chat. And if he doesn't heed the message, there is still the chance he'll heed his nose and stomach: Besides the low crackle of static and hard rock on the radio, the sound and smell of eggs and bacon sizzling on the stove also fills the air. It's never a good sign when Raith is cooking. Ever. Especially when he's cooking for more than one. It only ever means one of two things: Either he has bad news, or he has a favor to ask. A serious favor.
The action in the kitchen stands in further contrast with the evening itself, with pleasant temperatures, a cool breeze and all around quiet. Calm outside held at bay by brewing chaos inside. The shape of things to come?
Beyond the sound of the sizzling breakfast food and the mutter of the radio, Raith will also hear the sudden lift of wings as the birds that had been accumulating out side the Dispensary over the last hour abruptly take off all at once, in the same few seconds of spinning avian traffic and pounding wings. It's an ordinary sound, mostly, the errant cry of some wronged bird and the fading departure as the flock ascends into the sky. This might be why Gabriel walks into the kitchen.
Rubbing his brow as if to banish a headache, Gabriel's demeanor is that of the neglected teenager of the family, some perpetual unhappiness that has less to do with how much baseball he played with his father figure in his childhood and more to do with said father figure has kidnapped his girlfriend. "What did you want?"
Raith doesn't answer right away, instead taking a moment to finish turning the eggs over. "There's a couple things we need to talk about," he then says somberly with a brief glance over his shoulder. The last few days haven't been good to any of them, Teo included. "Come on over, have a seat. I hope you don't mind breakfast for dinner." It's an interesting thing to ponder, perhaps. How many meals the Remnant has eaten around the stove versus how many they've eaten at their table. It's an uncertain ratio, at the very least. "Maybe you could grab a couple plates, too? Please?"
And Gabriel does so, falling into the rhythm of shared living space as if he hadn't lived alone for the extent of his twenties prior. He seems tired, and sleepless, and his search— obviously— hasn't turned up much in the way of results, for all that he doesn't have to leave the building to look. Sometimes he does, anyway. Lakely he's had sparrows taking dives to flit through the best locations for tumbling bodies, a raven perched on the edge of the former Filatov clinic. They all have a message.
It hasn't yet been returned. The circle of white ceramic is offered to Raith, Gabriel obediently keeping one for himself as he takes a seat.
One for Gabriel, still empty, one for Raith, now bearing hot food. He doesn't keep it long, however, passing it towards his (presently sole) companion, obviously to exchange one for the other. Even as he does, though, he stays silent, dishing the remaining half of bacon and eggs onto the fresh plate before putting the spatula aside. Forks and napkins, he thought to take care of beforehand, one bundle of cloth and steel going to Gabriel, and the other being kept for himself. Only then, when all that has been finished, does he take a seat himself. "You'd think these things get easier, the more they happen," he finally says reflectively, "But they don't. Not the second time. Not the fifth. Not ever."
He can do breakfast at night. His circadium rhythm is messed up anyway. Spearing eggs with his fork, Gabriel flicks a glance up at Raith's reflecting, and his other arm sets an elbow against the edge of the table, grinding his palm up the side of his face. "It doesn't have to get easier," he notes, with almost a shrug in his tone if not actually manifesting in his shoulders, which remain curled a little inwards, posture poor. "It just has to happen less, or not."
For another few moments, Raith watches Gabriel in silence. "In another life, you'd have made an excellent soldier, you know. One that'd make anyone proud." It's a compliment from Raith. Best just to accept it.
"Maybe next time," he adds, crimping a strip of bacon between his fingers and biting half of it off. "That's not all I called you for, of course," he says with his mouth full, "Something else, too. Serious." Another moment, and Raith is once again free to speak unobstructed. "I need you to do something for me. I don't think I've ever asked to much from you before, but this might finally do it. I'm not going to let it go without a fight, you understand, but even if after all my trying to persuade you, you still say 'no,' I'll understand. Please don't be angry."
Gabriel takes the compliment like he takes any compliment: a dark eyed, uncertain glance upwards, back downwards, ensuing silent assessment before it's filed away for later analysis. Maybe he wouldn't mind being a soldier — in whichever life. Shy silence is masked by forking a mouthful of breakfast meat and egg into his mouth, and he doesn't have much too say back to it. You too? Could be nice. Metal scrapes porcelain, and there's expectation in another glance upwards, eyebrow lifting. That final request almost gets a smile, dead eyed amusement though it might be.
"You usually do okay when I get mad," he notes, before setting his fork down and absently running his palms together. He's been getting a few favours lately. Some ignored, some easily accepted. "Shoot."
"This is a new kind of mad." Raith briefly shuts his eyes, sucking in a deep breath as his muscles tense. Whatever he's about to ask, he is preparing to take action, obviously not expecting a pleasant result. But whatever Gabriel's decision on the matter, at least Raith will understand it.
"I need you to pose as Eileen for a few days."
That smile, the beginnings of its suggestion, abruptly splits into a grin — not that Gabriel saw this coming, or anything. He did not. But along these same, aggarvating lines, certainly, that kindling set down during the revelation of Eileen's departure sparking to the same flame Raith is avoiding. Still. It's a smile, covered momentarily when Gabriel palms his hands over his face in a deliberate gesture of soothing headaches or weariness. "So that no one knows she's missing. I get it.
"I don't care about this project. You know that, don't you?" It's important, suddenly, between requests for help and compliments, admiration, respect, for Raith to know where Gabriel stands before it goes much further. "Eileen knows. I help you, and her, but I don't help them."
Just a bit, just enough, Raith relaxes. "I know. If you did, well, it's impossible to predict what the world would look like." He relaxes, but he doesn't smile. "Gabe, it's always been Eileen. I got us all in the same place, but she got us all on the same page. She provided the foundation that kept us together. She needs to be the foundation for the Ferrymen now.
"Whether or not everyone likes the idea, they're certain how they feel about it. It's that certainty that'll hold everyone together until the council is in place, and then the council will hold everyone together." Raith now adopts a poor posture, mirroring Gabriel in the curled shoulders and forward lean. "I know you don't care about the project, and I know it's still a big favor to ask, but…." A short pause, glance cast briefly aside as the ex-spy organizes his words to get his meaning across. "She's put everything she could into this, for the benefit of everyone. If I can't do anything else, seeing it through to its enactment is what I can do. But I can't do it without you."
There's a shred of bacon left, the debris of unfinished eggs, and Gabriel sets aside his plate as it is as he listens. A degree of challenge in the lift of his chin and focus sharpening through his overtired haziness, brown eyes a dull enough colour without sleep to cloud them. "Maybe not," he agrees, voice neutral, and his gaze zigzags over Raith's features. "Why are you in this, anyway? Soldier, Vanguard terrorist and remnant. Kind of Robin Hood of you, don't you think? Do some bad things to do some good things. Do you think any of them would want anything to do with you if they knew you murdered people based on our criteria?"
"Of course they wouldn't," Raith replies simply, straightening up and leaning back in his chair, returned more to his old self. "No matter how many skeletons they have in their own closets. But that's the way of things. The world is an ugly place right now, Gabe. The only way it'll get prettier is for people to do ugly things. That's what soldiers do. We do the ugly things so other people don't have to." Maybe Robin Hood. Maybe not so much. "It's why I became a soldier."
"I suppose I should be grateful you let me pick what side of the line to be on." Between ugly things and— presumably the soldiers. Gabriel scrapes fingernails down the developing bristle at his jaw, still studying Raith, as if analysing the necessity of fight between them. By the time his gaze is breaking and casting out towards the bleakly showing window of the kitchen, the older man might recognise his own victory. "Fine. I'll do it. Maybe I'll trip over something relevant if I walk a mile in her shoes."
If Raith does recognize that, at least in part, he's won (and really, since Gabriel agreed, it would be impossible not to recognize it), he doesn't celebrate or advertise it as a fact. "Thank you, Gabriel," is all he says about it. He doesn't run the risk of ruining anything by running his mouth longer than he needs to. Perhaps he's in a bit of shock that the conversation went as well as it did. "Thank you."
Gabriel tips his head to the side in a brief gesture that would probably mean don't mention it in normal discourse. "Tell me when and where. When we get Eileen back," and his eyes show a little more life as he looks back at Raith, "we get to have a long conversation about what I need." Setting his hands against the edge of the table, he goes to lever himself up to stand, glancing off for the door before he pauses, and adds; "I got the car running."
In case Raith mistook the growls of engine erratically sounding from the garage during the day as the car's death throes which at times it resembles.