Participants:
| Scene Title | No Colors Anymore |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Gabriel sees a red door and he wants it painted black. |
| Date | April 21, 2019 |
The Gray House
Dusk smothers the skyline in bruised shades of indigo and periwinkle, darkest where cloud cover blots out the light cast by the setting sun and the distant pinpricks that are the stars. It's a relatively cool evening, but not so cold or damp that breath leaves noses and mouths in the form of vapour — as summer approaches, the daylight hours grow longer and the buds on the trees outside the Gray house open into paper-thin leaves and clusters of pale blossoms the colour of unbleached linen.
A solitary light in the attic illuminates the front steps and bathes the entry in a dappled glow in lieu of what little is offered by the streetlamps that line the curb. It isn't late enough for the city to power them on, but their bulbs are still limned in pink, waiting for the signal to flicker to life and wash the sidewalk below with radiance.
When you visit someone else's house for dinner, it's polite to bring a bottle of wine. Deckard is holding an unopened bottle of whiskey instead. It's kind of like wine in that…it's alcohol. And it begins with a 'w.'
…Yeah.
Decently dressed in a neutral brown sport coat with patched elbows over a white dress shirt and blue jeans (that probably could've been slacks if he was really trying), he glances sideways over at Abigail once he's raised his un-ringed right hand to rap out a knock. He tries to do it subtly, but he's on glance number three now and his odds of keeping up stealth evaporate a little every time.
Light on in the attic, means that Gabriel's up there working away on his watches, tinkering. Maybe Eileen told him about the other morning with the test. Maybe. Abigail's in a khaki skirt beside Deckard, blue blouse, wavey blonde hair falling loose. She's seen him look, thinking he's getting away with it. "Eileen already knows. Don't worry. She was upset, but she's over it" She thinks. Eileen had a few more other things on her mind. The whiskey bottle is eyed, thinking she should have brought flowers as well, but what's done is done and she reaches of that few inches to brush the back of her hand over the back of Deckards ever so briefly.
The Grays are private people. Unless the person standing on the other side of the door is expected, it isn't uncommon for knocks to go unanswered — either no one is home, or those who are prefer to remain in quiet seclusion. Deckard and Abigail, however, have an appointment, and only a few moments pass before the lock turns and the door opens, revealing Eileen's petite frame clothed in a simple black dress with golden yellow embroidery and a portrait neckline emphasized by her throat.
"Abigail," she murmurs in greeting. "Flint. Come in."
"I'm not worried," Deckard lies at an unconvincing murmur, greyed brows tipping down even as he lets his fingers drift lazily through and then away from hers. Why would he be worried what they think? THAT'S SILLY. He's Flint Deckard. Flint Deckard doesn't care what anyone thinks!
Except that he stands up a little straighter when the door starts to open, long face slated free of false skepticism. There's a weighty 'glunk' when the liquor in hand rolls through the base of its thick bottle and he manages the appropriate human response and forces a smile for Eileen's sudden presence in front of him. Or so he'd like to think. It's so automatic by now that it's almost genuine in a pavlovian kind of way. "Heeey." HEEEY.
"I cry bullshit" Abigail whispers back as the door is opening. "Whiskey. He thought Gabriel might enjoy it better than a big ol' bouquet of sunflowers" True, he might. Abigail slips in after the invitation is extended, wiping her feet at the door. There's no children in tow, seems they're still at her fathers. As long as there's an Dangerous electrical human in her home, they're not coming home. For now. "Gabriel coming down or have we lost him to the time pieces. Same for Bai-Chan?"
"Bai-Chan's spending the night at the Fulk's," Eileen explains as she steps aside, making room for Abigail and Deckard in the entryway. No mention of Gabriel, at least not immediately, though her facial features adopt a more tentative expression when the blonde brings up his name. "If you're hungry, I put some pita chips and hummus out on the table. Dinner's still in the oven, so it'll be about another hour before we can actually sit down."
Gray-green eyes move from the faces of her guests to the bottle of whiskey, one corner of her mouth quirking faintly upward. Wine would go better with what's on the menu tonight, but she's in neither the mood nor position to complain. "Glasses are in the kitchen, the husband is upstairs. Which stop do you want to make first?"
Fffff he'll show her bullshit — but Deckard doesn't have time to say anything before he's shouldering in sideways after her, whiskey in tow. Predictably, he misses the cue to wipe his feet, probably too busy remembering to keep his mouth closed while he chews later. And even more predictably, his eyes skip only briefly upward to wherever Gabriel's stashed himself away before they settle with more conviction upon the kitchen. The glasses are in there.
"I don't want to disturb Gabriel. It's his sanctuary. How is Brian. I haven't seen him in a coon's age" Polite proper conversation, try to avoid the topic of work or the bathroom occurrence. Abigail doesn't want to disturb him, but that doesn't mean that Deckard can't go bug the former serial killer in his bat cave of solitude. From Abigails purse, there's a scribbled drawing of a house and a sun and what might possibly be Eileen. "From Natalie. And waiting is fine, I know, we're a little early" They're always early because she can't stand being late. On time maybe, but five minutes early. "And whatever your cooking will be good. Our guests seem to be doing all the cooking at the brownstone right now"
"You have guests at the brownstone?" Eileen's tone remains carefully neutral as she shuts the door behind Abigail and Deckard, then locks it. That's one thing she never forgets to do, thanks to the long and sordid history their social circle shares. "Someone should go up and let him know that you're here. He needs to eat. See other people." Anything to reduce the tension in the house. Bai-Chan's stay at the Fulk's wasn't his idea, after all — Eileen is taking a page from Abigail's book in the hope some time alone and among old friends might improve things in light of her earlier confession.
She enters the kitchen, flat-clad feet scuffing against the hardwood floors, and pins Natalie's drawing to the fridge with a colourful magnet in the shape of a finch. "Brian's fine. You should give him a call if you have time. Hearing from you'd be good for him. Grounding."
Needs to eat and see other people. A brow lifted after Eileen's move for the kitchen in earnest distraction more than anything Teo might hit him for, he turns the same look onto Abigail in the quiet way people do behind other people's backs. Unrest in the house of Gray? He never would have guessed.
Mild all the same, in he goes after her in a state of default quietude to get a glass for himself. Also, ice so that he can have something to pour his whiskey over when he opens it himself at the far counter. Guests, what? "I'll get him," volunteered once the weight of the bottle has been clunked back down and recapped, he glances down at the freshly magneted picture on his way back out of the kitchen, booze in hand. "Needs more eyebrows." Eileen and Sylar both have dark hair. Honest mistake! One that fits the space that might be devoted to an assessment of Brian's current state of mind with a neat exactitude that spares him all the way out and to the stairs, which creak under his weight.
"I'll let Gabriel explain who they are. Needless to say, There's a reason I'm on vacation and my children are at my fathers. I don't know how secret Phoenix is trying to keep their actions since no one has talked to me other than to make sure I'm not having a problem with the guests" there's a glance to Deckard as runs off to go fetch the SCOUT officer.
"Brian's… I don't think I'll be able to ground him. I think he was lost when he opened the second Lighthouse and was preening in front of the camera's for all he's worth. But I'll try and get a hold of him. Last time I tried I got his secretary and not a phone call back." Once Deckard's out of earshot, Abigail looks back. "I take it it didn't go well when you told him?"
Let Gabriel explain? Phoenix? Suffice to say, this is the first Eileen's heard of any potentially illicit activities occurring in Abigail's home. Deckard's remark about eyebrows slips by unnoticed, even as Eileen's arch into an inquisitive look that betrays her surprise. Never mind how well the conversation with her husband went. This is a much more interesting development. "I think I'd rather hear it from you," she says. Pointedly, "What's going on?"
Upstairs is quiet. No music from Bai-Chan's abandoned room, no real noise from the closed door of the attic. The couple of knocks Deckard's spares for Gabriel's privacy go completely ignored, and there's a faint shuffle of movement behind the wooden barrier. Lamp light is what greets Deckard when he goes to open the door, and further ignoring.
The attic. Fortunate that they even have one. The study doesn't have the same ring to it, although it's named as such interchangeably. The exposed rafter-like ceiling gives it away, however, the wooden floors and the perpetual state of storage, cardboard boxes crammed aside, and the throbbing ticking of clocks rotating in perfect tandem. Gabriel's own special sanctuary.
And currently, it's a mess.
The smell of paint is the first sensation, a mild scent that overrides the mustiness. The radio is switched on and doesn't manage to fill the room with even tinny sounds, the volume reduced to a whisper. If the world had any justice, the very very quiet song that's playing currently, inaudible to those of regular hearing, would be some cover of Paint It Black, but alas, sometimes it just doesn't work out that way. Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash twangs out instead.
Every canvas board Gabriel owns has been uncovered, opened, laid out. Three eisels have been set out, three paintings occupying them, but it's apparently not enough, canvases laid out on any available surface, propped against boxes, larger clocks, strewn on the floor. And every single one of them glimmers with fresh paint, of exactly one colour.
Black. The same inky colour is spattered on Gabriel's arms, bared from his shirt sleeves rolled up past his elbows, as he feverishly draws a paintbrush over the one canvas laid in front of him on the floor, the erstwhile serial killer kneeling in front of it. There's actually a swatch of red in the middle of it, oblong and precise, but it's next to gone in the subsequent moment as he smears a loaded paintbrush of ebony over it, again and again until it's swallowed up in tar.
Even as the door opens to Deckard's lanky silhouette, Gabriel makes no response, no acknowledgement, and this time, it's not due to pretending like he doesn't know. That's a game he only plays with Eileen. He simply doesn't. In defiance of the pitch black of his numerous paintings, his eyes have gone milky white like a blind man's, and his expression is serene as he works, and works, and works.
Knock knock. Bony knuckles rapped against the attic door in an automated replica of his performance downstairs at the front, Deckard waits one beat, two beats, three. Once enough seconds have passed that he starts itching to glance at his watch, he sips his drink and glances through the door instead, chill eyes flaying through solid wood to see that Gabriel is…not up to anything that would be embarrassing to walk in on. Unless he's painting naked pictures of Abby or something, in which case…well. As long as — no. Not going to continue that line of thought.
He opens the door instead, sooty hair ruffled by the exchange in air pressure when he lets himself on in. "Normally I try not to go all Oprah on people I actually like, but do you think maybe you might have forgotten to — " his eyes recolor themselves against yellow lamp light, natural blue cleansing bloodless grey only to be rewarded by canvas after canvas of inky black nothing. Emphasis on the black. And the nothing. Cut off mid-sentence, he nudges the door mostly closed behind him with a bump of his elbow, slow strides skreeaaking across exposed slats underfoot until he's next to the kneeling form of Gabriel, white-eyed and en absentia while he works, works and works. And it burrrns burns burns.
Cold glass lifted to the flat line of his mouth, Deckard sips his drink.
"I got dead people walking and talking in my living room. Same goes for Elisabeth at Dorchester, and Cat's got a few over in the Village" What the hell might as well live up to her reputation. "Helena, Alexander, Norton, Isabelle, Jessica which means there's Niki as well, Lucrezia, A company agent called Elle Bishop and there's another Django? I never saw him before. Fresh out of Moab" Wait for it. Abby leans on a counter, utter seriousness. "Ten years ago. They succeeded where our time.. they failed. Only somehow, Tamara carted them into Liz'z livingroom. I have Norton staying with me. With us, Elee as well since he negates her Electrokinesis, and Isabelle as well"
For a long time, Eileen is silent. Stony. She isn't sure who she should be more upset with: Abigail, for not telling her sooner, or Gabriel… for not telling her at all. Helena, Alexander, Norton, Isabelle, Lucrezia — these are all names that she not only recognizes, but also possesses an intimate familiarity with. Dead people. Time-travelers. "How is that possible?" she asks, and the question probably bears repeating because Abby's story doesn't make sense. "It's not— It isn't supposed to work that way." Is it?
He doesn't stop until the square of white before him is covered with that inky sheen, no more red in sight, and the canvas is shoved aside. The wooden floor is spattered with black. Next. Gabriel does not break from his trance as he should, eyes still blind-white, getting to his feet and utterly ignoring Deckard as he moves past him, picking up one of two remaining canvases, resuming his kneeling in the center of the ground and dragging his paints closer.
First it's the red. A rectangle. Some detail. A door. Then, with much less grace, it's the black again, smearing in arcs to cover the white and red with eternity. Gabriel is dressed for dinner, in black slacks, shiny shoes, a blue dress shirt, and a black smear of paint has coursed over his face at some point. He doesn't seem panicked, calm and lost as he works, though his hands work desperately, as if there wasn't enough time to fill in blank space with blackness.
The canvas is shoved aside. When it's done. Hands search out the next. He has to stop when the paint runs dry and the boards do too, right? The clocks tick together, the parts of an abandoned gramophone spread out amongst jars of paint and water.
"Ominous," Deckard notes with an air of self-effacing satire, rough voice muffled into the cheerful resettlement of melting ice in his glass. Red rectangle on a field of white, then black black black. Over and over. And over.
He stays where he is, watching for longer than he should. It's fascinating. There is also a sick brand of satisfaction to be relished in witnessing an unnatural manifestation of what he had up to this point only assumed was true. One last sip and he finds a box to set his glass down on. Depending on how deep in he is, he might need both hands. "Gabriel."
"Eileen, I don't know. I just know that people who should be dead, walked through Elisabeth's front door, shuffled there by Tamara. I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, just.. now you know as much as I do. I just told Gabriel the other night. I asked him to keep it quiet" No, she won't throw Gabriel under the bus and tell Eileen that Elisabeth told Gabriel long before Abigail did. "I got a nasty company agent in my front room, she's having relations with Norton Trask, and when I head over to Dorchester, things are quiet. "I suppose it likely has something to do with Hiro Nakamura" There's a glance upstairs. "He been like this since you told him?"
Eileen's jaw works, masticating words she wants to say but is too polite to. Her shoulders rise as she breathes in, then slowly slump when she exhales and blows an aggravated sigh out through her nostrils. She's gotten used to being kept in the dark — any anger she feels is tempered by the time she spent working with FRONTLINE in a bid to earn her freedom, and before that, the Vanguard. "I don't mind being the last one to find out about everything," she lies, "but let it be said that you're both severely lacking in tact." As for Gabriel: "Does it matter?"
Gabriel. There's a minor hesitation when Deckard says his name, a hitch in the strokes of a paint brush and a slightly distracted tilt to his head, but that's about it, his work resumed half that fleeting half-second. I fell into a burning ring of fire… Fine paint drops jump out from a hasty flick of the thick paint brush, just near Deckard's shoes, as Gabriel applies the substance to what remains of the white canvas, filling in the space with rosey shapes of darkness until there's nothing more to see, right up to the edges. The container of thick black paint is running low, but there's more where it comes from and he doesn't ration it out, using as much as necessary.
How long until they've been up here for too long and someone downstairs starts to wonder? How long to snap Gabriel out of it without getting set on fire? How long to make an attic's worth of wet canvases disappear without getting it set on fire? Deckard scuffs a hand up over a shadow that's already seen at least two or three five o'clocks and then more roughly back over the top of his head. The math on this operation isn't looking so great.
Nonetheless.
"Gabe. Gabriel. Christ, you're really great at fucking yourself over for someone with godlike influence over everything ever." There's a wince when he stoops to brace a hand at the younger man's shoulder. It takes a stupid bear to fall asleep in the middle of hiding the end of the world from his wife with incriminating evidence all over the place. It takes an even stupider park ranger to try to shake it awake again. Deckard shakes anyway. Like a polaroid picture. (Oh oh.) "HEY."
Hey there boo boo, how about a picnic basket? Filled with death. "When have I ever had tact Eileen? I tend to just say whatever it is. I'm no good at keeping secrets. I just hadn't been around you and then the night of the ball, the ordeal with magnet, then the.. elopement, then yesterday morning…" the pregnancy scare. "I've been playing chauffeur for my guests, and Natalie's wanting to come home so I've been trying to make sure to take her to daycare. Gabriel said to not have them near Elle. I've been busy" It's apologetic and guilty. She understands, she really does. If she could grovel, she would, but there's still the worried look up through the floors. "They should have been down here by now"
Yes. They should. Eileen dismisses Abigail's apology as gracefully as she can, taking the other woman's arm as she mounts the stairs and places her opposite hand on the banister. Men don't gossip, and to be fair she doesn't really either, so unless Gabriel has decided to show off his gramophone and lose himself explaining the mechanics of the project, the conspicuous silence coming from the attic warrants an investigation.
"You should talk to the Petrellis," she suggests, much as she is loath to do so. Footsteps creak on the steps as she makes her way up to the attic, healer in tow. "I don't know how much experience Peter has with this sort of thing, but if anyone's done research into it— it's Pinehearst."
Jostling delays, but does not stop. Those who have encountered the late Isaac Mendez and Peter Petrelli will know the frustration, and even as Gabriel does pause, paint brush finding only air as Deckard shakes him, his face turning up towards the other man's, his eyes don't bleed brown again. He doesn't even blink. Not hearing the sounds of footsteps or the inevitable squeak of door hinges, Gabriel, zombie-like, twitches away from Deckard's grip with mundane strength rather than, say, lasers, and attempts to resume.
"Fffff," is what Deckard has to say about this. He throws his hands up, literally, if without much energy, and turns quickly away to pick out the nearest wet painting. Fingers curled carefully under the nearest edge (to avoid getting messy or to avoid incriminating himself or to avoid getting any on his pretty ring, you decide!) he nudges another tipped up painting flat with his foot and drops the first down onto the second, black face to black face. The process is repeated with some urgency — two more paintings rendered inert, black to black, before he lifts a fifth and thinks to glance downstairs through the floor. They probably don't have much time. Three, four minutes before they…
They aren't in the kitchen. Painting in hand, brows knit, Deckard swings his glowy-eyed, scruffy head back around to the cracked door.
Abigail and Eileen. It's like some old fashioned family sitcom about two wives always walking in on their husbands and their crazy antics while taking care of the children. The healers steps join the other woman's on the way up. "Flint! Gabriel! Is everything okay up there? Please tell me your not killing each other because really, I don't want to be healing anyone this evenin…" Abigails blonde head pokes around the doorway as they come to it, downright confusion on her face. "Flint Deckard, what are you doing?"
Eileen could ask the same question, but a cursory examination of the attic's current state raises dozens of others. She looks from Gabriel, to Deckard, to the sandwiched paintings and then back to Gabriel again, realization dawning brighter with every prolonged moment that passes. Wordlessly, she releases her gentle hold on Abigail's arm and pulls away from her, drawn toward the figure of her own husband, brush still in hand.
They've been through this before, and Eileen knows it doesn't get any easier over time — there are very few things that will snap Gabriel out of a trance as intense as the one he's presently trapped in. She can either sit on the sidelines, waiting it out, or she can attempt to break the spell herself by placing her body between his and the canvas, both hands moving to roughly seize his wrists as she presses against the broad barrel of his chest and forces him back.
She opts for the latter.
The first thing that tenses is his grip on the brush, Gabriel's body easily moved even by Eileen's smaller frame as he's pushed back from his painting, eyes wide and sightless still. He makes no noise of protest, although his breathing comes out a little more rushed as he's forced back from his work, other hand moving to blindly fight back, if without particular zeal. She can be angry at him later for all black fingertips making greasy, smoky streaks on her arms, her clothing.
Oh no, the full name. There is a near imperceptible hunching withdrawal within Deckard's little region of attic space. "Holding a painting," is tried an awkward series of seconds later without real hope of success.
"Holding a painting" trying to hide the paintings is more like it. Abigail takes a look a the black canvas, Deckard holding one, Eileen trying to bodily superimpose herself as her husbands new canvas in the hopes that he'll stop. The healer creeps forward as she reaches out to touch Gabriel's hand. Just a zap really, the slightest loosening the tiniest slip in healing for Gabriel. If his one ability isn't reigned in, the very brief moment of pain might give him a wake up call, if it is, well, it'll do nothing. Just a touch of his hand before Abigails own pulls back just as quick. "Eileen, what do you need Deckard and I to do?" You know, spoken while she's doing that quick touch.
Eileen's dress was black to begin with. The same cannot be said of the embroidery edging its hems, and chances are she won't be wearing this particular outfit again unless she can deliver it to the drycleaner's in something resembling a timely fashion. For now, she ignores the smears of paint glistening on her long, bare arms and the front of her clothes, her focus squared solely on the man standing in front of her. "Flint has the right idea," she grinds out through gritted teeth as she pries the brush from Gabriel's fingers, "turn them around, put the canvases away. He can't paint if he doesn't have anything to paint on." Or with.
She can worry about what they depict another time. Prophetic visions aren't the priority; bringing the prophet around so he can speak to them is. The paintbrush, once wrestled from Gabriel's slick grasp, is cast away, clattering to the floor and leaving an ugly spatter-trail in its rolling wake. "Sylar," she hisses, voice suddenly very hoarse and very low, "Sylar, it's Eileen. Munin. Come back to me."
The zap doesn't help, it seems, only one power going - good for Eileen or she might be dust. For the first time, he makes a noise. It's almost a growl, brief and helpless, when the brush is twisted from oily fingers and discarded, wrists trapped once more by Eileen's determined clasp. Gabriel's hands jerk blindly against her in some half-hearted attempt at freedom, but finally… his head tips down as if hearing her voice, mouth parted in silent reply, and then eyes flicker.
Pinpoints of black appear in the blank white of his eyes, amber-brown circles blossoming from there, unfocused at first and panicked. Gabriel takes a breath as if he hasn't been doing so properly for as long as he's been up here, and his sight settles on her face. A trace of fear there, fleeting. Blink. Blink. Away from the eternal blackness that takes up so many craft supplies. "I got stuck," he says, breathlessly. Then, Abby and Deckard are looked towards, completely bewildered, and lastly, a nearby clockface. He's been painting for— far too long.
…He does? Oh. Not having moved much since they were initially caught, Deckard hesitates a moment before he extends his arm and lets the canvas clatter face down onto the back of its nearest brother. Meanwhile calling Gabriel Sylar strikes him as a singularly bad idea, maybe even because it actually seems to be working. Still, he says nothing, rooted awkwardly to the spot with black-smudged hands held slightly away from his sides while he glances from Abby to the Grays, and then more specifically from Eileen to Gabriel. Even subdued, the particular tilt to his brows has much to say that he doesn't. You're in trouble, dude.
Right. take the brush. Abigail darts over, a grown woman scrambling to pick up the brush, the open things of paint, a glance to Deckard as he's putting the canvas's away. When the eyes start to change back though, Abigail stands there with the paint brush and paint in hand, her own head mirroring Deckards, waiting. Watching. "Are we all better now?" each word cautious and drawn out as if they had a question mark at the end of each.
Better is one of those subjective words. Sticky and without real meaning even when it's applied to something. Eileen slides Deckard and Abigail a grateful look over Gabriel's shoulder as she lets go of his wrists and moves her hands to his face so she can brush away an errant curl of hair, leaving an ebon smudge across his brow in the process. She sees that fear. Recognizes it. Knows it. She's feeling something similar, heavy like lead in the pit of her stomach. "Just as soon as we get cleaned up," she says. Because there isn't a person in the room without a spot of paint on them.
It's starting to register, now. What just happened. The black paint now on everyone's hands, smears of nothingness. The sharp shame of letting an ability get out of control, heightened by the presence of friends who are otherwise strangers when it comes to such deeply personal feelings. Gabriel's jaw clenches, gaze flicking to Eileen's when he feels her hand touch his brow, stepping back from her and looking down at his hands duskily coated in paint. Towards the stack of canvases, the black splashes everywhere.
His hands raise as if to touch his face, before he hesitates, a snort of irritation at the sight of his own dirty hands, managing just barely not to. First thing's first. Get three people too many out of his room. "Excuse me," he mutters, not meeting anyone's eyes as Gabriel makes a hasty exit for the door. Trusting people to follow suit, and if they don't, well, he can't be bothered by what he doesn't see. He'd like to wash black off his hands, anyway.
Abigail watches Gabriel take off, quickly, a glance to Eileen, then to Deckard and a sigh. There's a shake of her head. Abilities gone haywire. No one here wouldn't be understanding. Maybe if it had been others who were here. "Lets go get cleaned up. I'm suddenly feeling very hungry for hummus" Yup. hummus. Because Hummus isn't black. But as she passes after putting down the paint brush and paint Abigail grins. "I guess the only thing more embarrassing would be if we caught you both have sex?"
Deckard doesn't really do much moving until Gabriel is already out, and even then it's to wipe his left hand across the back of his right so that it's semi-clean enough to retrieve his whiskey. He turns the radio off in the same movement, chilly eyes sweeping back after the glistening panels of black that still stand stark around the attic space. Each presumably with a little red door.
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