Need

Participants:

eileen_icon.gif gabriel_icon.gif

Scene Title Need
Synopsis Gabriel and Eileen arrive at an understanding after a week of avoiding one another.
Date May 8, 2010

Old Dispensary


It's difficult to imagine that the Dispensary was once a center of vigorous activity occupied by more than a dozen people at any given time during the earliest stages of its history. The property has been abandoned longer than it was ever in use, and its Gothic-inspired architecture is more reminiscent of an old Victorian castle than the makeshift hospital and dormitory that it once was. Apart from the fire burning in the hearth and the somewhat stale smell of scouse made with rabbit in place of beef or lamb, there are very few signs that the building is occupied by more than a few mice lucky enough to have found refuge between narrow cracks in its cold stone walls.

Downstairs in the basement, the sound of humming generators is conspicuously absent. Jensen spoke of conserving electricity and unless something horrible has happened in Gabriel's absence, then it seems that he's made good on his threat and left light to candles and warmth to what the kerosene heaters generously provide.

It's dark. Normally a sign that everyone else has retired for the evening; he's the only one among them capable of safely navigating the stairs without the aid of a flashlight or lantern.

With the same liquid movements of a seacreature, the shadow-form that Wu-Long unintentionally left as his legacy comes writhing out from the gap between doors. It's a silent entry way, but only its edges seem to blend into the darkness imposed by a lack of electrical current and lightswitches, as the movement and navigation gives itself away as a supernatural being. The darkness, like the light, has its tricks — but none like this. Having spared himself a very chilly journey to the Old Dispensary, Gabriel turns corporeal again, his boots finding the floor of the massive room, his eyes catching hearth and lantern light.

He takes a breath, enjoying this simple function denied to him when transformed, and looks down at his hand. As he begins to stroll towards the fireplace with a rhythmic fall of light steps, he winds the scarlet cloth around his knuckles as he contemplates it, his gait meandering, his expression idle, and the hem of his coat sways after him.

One of the disadvantages to living on the Dispensary's second floor is that there's only one way up and one way down, but if there's one thing the other shadow has learned it's to make the best of a bad situation. If it waits at the top of the stairs, no one can get past it without confronting it first, and when it hears the sound of boots echoing in the rafters of the high ceilings below, it abandons its post and winds its way down the steps.

Whether or not his psychic radar makes Gabriel aware of Eileen's presence, she chooses to linger in the archway at the bottom of the stairs instead of moving toward him when his shape initially comes into view, its hard angles illuminated by the fire's flickering orange and yellow glow.

Visually, there's nothing to differentiate him from his doppelganger, and maybe her silence can be attributed to uncertainty. A much more straightforward explanation involves the simple pleasure she derives from watching his musculature shift beneath his clothes as she studies his back.

His head lifts a fraction, but Gabriel doesn't yet turn to her, as if sensing her caution like one might note it from a wilder animal, and maybe sudden movements would have the critter disappearing back into the darkness with a flick of a tail, hind legs, or a flash of feather. What he does do, instead, is reach about as far as their mirrored empathy allows, and send a tremor of simple awareness like the vibrations down a guitar string. He knows she's there, and now she knows who's there.

Unless Sylar managed to eat another animal telepath, which isn't impossible, but. Gabriel slips the red rag into a coat pocket, the tail end just visible against all the black, and he rocks a step back from the fire to turn a look back towards the arc of the stairwell. His head ducks down, a facetious sort of gesture, eyes squinting as if to pick her out.

In the dark, Eileen is composed of softer curves than her rigid surroundings including the slope of her pale neck and shoulder, a sliver of collarbone visible where the sweater she wears on her small frame hangs off it and does not cover as much as it should. A narrow waist and slightly broader hips, the familiar swell of breasts, calves and thighs. Even without the intuitive link that they share, there's no mistaking her figure for anyone else's. Her exact proportions are unique, and there are very few people whose eyes have as much intensity behind them when they look at him.

He doesn't have to worry about frightening her away. If there's any comparison to be made between Eileen and a wild animal, it equates her to something long and sleek with a silky muzzle full of very sharp teeth.

She sends the tremor back down the line, and like her shape its frequency and pitch are distinct.

These could almost be mating calls, and Gabriel is just male enough to entertain the notion. Enough that he starts towards her, even if the warmth of the hearth has only licked its heat up his shins and thighs for a few blessed seconds, the prickling cold setting back in as soon as he leaves it. Long steps, as opposed to quick ones, eating up distance until he can step within the arc of the hallway's entrance. It's not as though he has forgotten their past few days of staying away, what caused it. He's not even, necessarily, dismissing it.

This is, in fact, almost solely about that. Almost. He intends to use his large frame to have her edge back against the wall, intends to rest his hands on either side of partially-shown shoulders, and bracket her there in his longer limbs and height.

Hands with a texture like polished marble find Gabriel's face, firm fingers smooth, cool to the touch and seeking the contour of his mouth to shape it with the side of a thumbnail. There are people with the ability to read minds this way. Eileen's reason for exploring the structure of his chin, jaw and cheekbones is similar in that there are things she can determine by roving her palms over stubble.

Her own feelings, for instance. She isn't as gentle as she's been in the past; even after almost a week of separation, residual anger makes itself known in her rough handling of him and the saw-toothed edge her breath adopts when the distance between them narrows, then closes.

People are complex. The emotions they experience are, too. Animosity is only one part of what Gabriel can sense, and as potent as it is, it's nothing without what's layered beneath it. If she did not want and love him still, she wouldn't be losing the battle to maintain an impartial facade.

He can tolerate it. The anger and its minute manifestations. As far as they have gone with each other when it comes to venting their frustrations, hooking fingers and sharp nails are on a low enough scale for Gabriel to bear — he might even agree with her, this time. It doesn't stop the eventual unity of his mouth pressing to her's, closed and claiming if not necessarily chaste. His knees bend, the angle deepens, and he has his hands, still, on the chill wall of the Dispensary hallway just next to her shoulders.

He is either very brave or very foolish to be anywhere near her teeth.

Eileen drags them over his mouth in a punishing kiss as her fingers rake through his hair and nails like claws bite into his scalp. When she finally does speak, it's wet and haggard in a tone as uneven as her breathing has become without allowing any space between his lips and hers. They taste dry, cracked. "I want to be what you need."

Which is different from needing to be what he wants. Compromise instead of unconditional surrender.

The light is doing strange things — what Eileen can see of his face, anyway, this close and in this darkness. The distant hearth firelight should be carving a moon shape from his profile in glowing and flickery orange, but it dims, sporadic, a shading of illumination that rolls over him as liquid as a water ripple. Her, too, shadow sweeping over her own frame as if Gabriel might just yank them into the higher state of energy in which he'd arrived and take them both somewhere more comfortable. Your place or mine? The breaking of a kiss, though—

Then words pressed to him, and Gabriel blinks. It is a guilty blink, if Gabriel knows how to feel guilt, or some miniscule acknowledgment of a Problem that has also occurred to him. The tip of his nose brushes against her's more out of proximity than affection, backs up another inch or two without actually releasing her from where he now has her. "It would have been you," he opts for, voice harsh in its whisper, hermit-crab shy at the back of his throat. "Because you are."

A fraction of Eileen's quiet ferocity relents and is replaced with something more tender that marginally relaxes her grip and coaxes her hands to cradle his face in her palms, one thumb on either side of his mouth, a smaller mirror image of his hands pressed against the wall. She kisses him again, this time in acknowledgment of what he's saying, but the capture of his mouth is short and swift, immediately relenting.

It's cold. Her breath forms vapour in the air, bleeding silver from her nose and mouth on its way out of a tight chest. She's trembling, and it has nothing to do with the tumult that is her emotional state. "Then help me understand."

She winds up murmuring this towards the curve of his neck, Gabriel lifting his heavy head, warm breath steaming past her temple as he catches a glimpse of the shape of his hand to the wall. Next, the edge of his jaw, chin, graduating up the slope of his cheek against her hair, a human interpretation of the way cats claim and the way dogs show supplication. She'll feel that empathic awareness open up further, drawing the awareness of the night time birds closer to this building and at the same time, giving her a more open view of the empathic etcher-sketch map that Gabriel Gray carries with him.

There's a loneliness to everything. It tremors through the same notes of lust, affection, pride. "It's a cold winter," he mutters, the sound almost vibrating in her skull clear than it goes heard. "Odessa was warm. I just— I wanted it. In the same second that she did. She welcomed me home — so glad I was back. And she thinks she knows me."

If there's one thing Eileen can lay claim to knowing, it's loneliness. In this way, not a lot has changed since she was small and spent nights in bed with her back to the wall, listening to the sound of London traffic with her matchstick limbs wrapped around a pillow. Out here on Staten Island, she's in awe of its silence and keeps her pillow under her head where it belongs. Still sleeps facing her bedroom door, if for entirely different reasons.

Her work with the Ferry requires that she surround herself with people, but there's a distinct absence of warmth and sociability in her interactions with them. She has very few friends. Fewer that she acknowledges.

Gabriel is one. He deserves the same honesty he's shown her. "I'll never worship you like she does."

Now would be a good time to deny the worth of worship, but if they're being honest— Gabriel has already made it perfectly clear exactly how he responds to worship. By pinning the worshiper against the wall and getting tangled in her hair like an overly affectionate pet cockatiel, and hungry kisses and needy hands. It's as much about reward as it is about sex. He's quiet for a short time, thinking, mouth small in the dark and eyes hooded, chin hovering the crown of her head. A hand has graduated from its press to the wall, to toying with inky locks.

"Worship— is not what I need," he finally settles on, wry and honest. She set the terms — this might well slot neatly into them.

"I can pay some tribute," Eileen counters, taking Gabriel's hand in hers to rub her thumb along the inside of his palm and bring knuckles to her mouth. As she rotates it by the wrist, she kisses each one individually before she lowers it and places him at the hollow of her throat where her pulse flutters shallow. Easy access to his neck is one of the few benefits of being shorter than he is, and she takes advantage of it often; teeth graze skin and catch at his chin in the form of a slow, gentle bite. "Is it going to happen again?"

His thumb skims up the curve of her throat, feeling the gooseflesh countered by the natural heat of her body, just a few degrees cooler than his own over-metabolised self, warm enough to extend to his fingertips. "Well. Making up is kind of fun," he says, with his tone containing the Cheshire smile that his face only alludes to with the subtle quirk of a smirk. Gabriel's head tips, captures her mouth in a kiss, one that's as impassioned as it is preventing her from immediately replying.

Height is to her advantage again in that he can't quite press his body flush against hers, but he can take her wrists and ease them back against the wall, as if to prevent more clawing hands and rough handling, his own more firm than brutish. "No," he finally says, against the angle of her jaw.

Eileen's relief can be felt in the way she physically yields, allowing Gabriel to pin her wrists and steal away the use of her hands as the tension in the muscles of her body gradually relaxes under him. She'd made a sharp sound of protest before he covered her mouth by force, but whatever reprimand had been half-formed at the back of her throat ends up smothered.

It isn't a perfect fix. No such thing exists. It is, however, cause for reciprocation, and rather than verbalize a reply to his promise, she responds with an encouraging noise that's accompanied by the brush of her consciousness against his. Intimacy without touch.

By the time his mouth has wandered to the pale column of her throat, his hands have slid up over slender wrists that fit against his palm easily, to clasp over hands and cover them whole. His fingers mesh with her's, dragging into twin clasps that is not an entirely unfamiliar gesture between them in these moments. A moment later, Gabriel's body is practically melting into her's — which melts in turn as they both become shadows, hovering in a kind of mingled state of high energy before it chooses to move.

It chooses to move upstairs.


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