Participants:
| Scene Title | No Self Control |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Gabriel, Peter and Gillian come together to pick up where they left off. It never quite gets there as tempers flare within 0.3 seconds, and Gabriel decides it's time to teach Peter about his power. |
| Date | May 29, 2009 |
On the outside, this sprawling multi-level complex has not seen use in many years, its walls covered in greenery and stone exterior and glass windows showing evidence of disrepair. Surrounded by a chain link fence, a drive leads from the street to a large dock, and around the back one can expect to find more sprawling greenery that eventually leads to a concrete drop off into the Atlantic Ocean.
Passing through the chainlink fence and into the dispensary will reveal that the aged and crumbling outside is a facade. The loading dock is kept clear for the most part of everything save vehicles and supplies, though a section has been quartered off and transformed into an open workshop. The dispensary itself has been transformed into something akin to a makeshift dormitory, complete with common areas, a sizable kitchen and eating area, with various rooms converted into bedrooms for the residence. One room has even been set up as a makeshift clinic, amply stocked with supplies.
The back lawn and garden of the dispensary is surprisingly well tended, green and lush during the right months. Vegetables have been planted in accordance to season closer to the building, though someone has indulgently planted a plots of flowers - notably sunflowers - here and there. Further out, the ground drops a little and makes it to a concrete edge from which opens out into deeper water of the Atlantic.
In the distance, it looks like candles.
The way firebacklights the hollow skeletons of skyscrapers, it makes it look like candles in a cemetary, with all of the jumbled bones of the dead on display. From the rooftop of an old dispensary set on the coast of Staten Island, the fires that rage in Midtown look like something out of a nightmare that Peter is all too familiar with. He's taken it upon himself to stand out in the drizzling rain, arms wrapped around himself and dark hair matted down in his face, transfixed like a moth to the flames.
Just over two years ago, it was much the same horrible image that drove Peter out of New York, to the depths of Alaska where he thought he would be safe, where he thought he could let the world pass him by. Now, two years later, everything is coming full circle again, in some horrible and distorted mirror of what once was. Only he doesn't quite know all of the details just yet.
When he can no longer stand to look at the fires, Peter turns his back to them, looking towards the door that leads out onto the roof, fingers curling into the rainsoaked fabric of his black, button-down shirt that clings to his frame. There's so much going on right now, and yet he can't help but think about only what's important to him. Maybe that's, ultimately, why he reaches for the cell phone in his pocket.
Fingers roll over the surface, wiping the screen dry as a few raindrops patter down on it. He flips the device open, holding down a button to speed dial someone, then brings the phone up to his ear, keeping the fires of Midtown at his back. "Dad," he finally says once someone picks up on the other end, "did… did you see what— " he cuts himself off. "I— I don't know. She hasn't come by for a while, I— if it is her I— "
Peter turns to look back over his shoulder at the raging inferno, eyes closing when he turns his head away. But even behind closed eyes, all he can see are the fires of two years ago, and the screams of those not killed instantly by the blast. "I'll bring her down, the minute I see her. I— " Dark brows crease together, and Peter looks as though he heard something horrible on the other end of the phone. "Why?" he demands into the receiver, "I don't think he'll— "
Silence hangs as Peter closes his eyes, shoulders slouching as he listens to the man on the other end of the phone. There's a nod, slow and beaten down. "I will… I'll— try. But Gabriel might not be willing to trust me, or you…"
It's been a long time since Gillian's stepped foot back on Staten Island. Avoidance has been up there on one of her list of things, even if she should have stopped doing it a while ago. The trip over had been by ferry, with money handed over, extra to make sure they had little trouble, and she stayed close to her companion, who— well— has seen better days. Many better days.
Soft shoes carry her into the building, where she casts eyes around and then starts up to the roof, after making a comment about the lesson being up there, maybe he's upstairs. It would have been better to call first, honestly, but she's just glad there's no sign of a blonde haired fairy princess who jumps through time. There might be one on the roof, though…
Feet carry her up, each step slow and careful, making sure that the other person with her can keep up. Much like the last time she was here, with many worries buzzing through her head, sound starts to trinkle down the stairwell for her ears only, carrying one side of the conversation at least. Why do these things always turn on when she least wants them to?
But it gives her something to say when she pushes the door open into the raindrops.
"It wasn't me," clear as day, with no explaination to the man behind her. A glance over at the candle-like city scape in the distance. "I didn't do it."
He follows Gillian. Mostly because she knows where they're going, and Gabriel doesn't, and she can hear where Peter Petrelli is located in the building, and he can't. The black jacket he wears is not the customary black woolen trenchcoat that reeks, still, of smoke and chemical, abandoned somewhere, and beneath that the stretch of grey sweater can be seen where the jacket isn't zipped up completely. Blue jeans are newish, stolen, and long, ending at black boots that make heavier foot falls than Gillian's light steps towards the rooftop door.
The inventory of injury is mostly covered, thankfully, by clothing, but can be seen in the way he carries himself, the cautious pace of an injured predator but too proud otherwise to let it show. Besides, it feels satisfying, in a way.
There are also less bullets in his gun. That feels good too. Like perhaps he's not just one of the safe anonymous bystanders of New York City. In fact, Gabriel is— feeling more like himself than he has in a long time, even if the burden of humanity makes getting all the way to Staten Island a journey he would have preferred not to endure in such a state. Bruises are scattered on his face, his fists, which are currently hidden in his pockets.
The back of Gillian's head gets a look, vaguely confused for a moment, before skimming past her, towards Peter, and then past him, through the haze of rain and towards where Midtown burns merrily, still, an immense dying fireplace that even the rain can't stomp down entirely.
He's not sure how long it burned the first time. He didn't get to see. "Neither did I," Gabriel says, making a guess. "Not on purpose." No greeting. He's just here. Following.
Looking up with a disjointed expression, Peter struggles to find his voice as he heard Gillian's voice and sees Gabriel so battered and bruised. He swallows noisily, rivulets of rain running down his forehead as he splutters into the phone, "I— have to go, they're here. I— I'll call you." There's a moment of tension, "I love you too, Dad." It is what Peter murmurs, hushed, into the phone before he flips it shut with a click.
A vacant, wordless stare is afforded to the two, and Peter bristles as he looks from Gillian to Gabriel. The phone is all but forgotten, clenched between tightly grasping fingers and white knuckles. Not on purpose. Those words ring around inside of his head and take a few minutes to fall into place, even longer for a reaction to come out.
"What— what did you do?" He practically spits the words out, backlit by the very fires that scour Midtown in his wake. He looks accusingly back to Gillian, then takes a few shuffling steps forward, rain slinging off of plastered locks of hair as he gesticulates wildly towards Gabriel in an outburst not quite becoming of him. "What did you do!?" It's all he can ask, when confronted with the inferno.
The whole admission that he didn't do it on purpose doesn't seem to strike her as a surprise. Gillian might know what he speaks of, then, even if the first words out of her mouth, rather than a greeting, was just to say it wasn't her. No kaboom in the city being her fault. The worst things she's done so far is short out an elevator and drug her boyfriend with a teary kiss— Well, as far as she knows that's the worst things she's done.
The end of the phone conversation makes her jaw tighten a bit, for one reason or another, and she takes a few strides out to get deeper onto the roof, even if it means she's getting rained on a little bit. It's refreshing, almost. And soothing. Not so soothing that the angry man using the backlight of fires to increase his presence. The words themselves almost make her grimace, the looks.
"Peter, come on," there's an annoyed sound in her voice, annoyed at Peter. None of that is directed at the battered man behind her, at least.
Out into the rain we go, far be it from Gabriel to be the practical one, even in this trio. His hair is already damp from it, moisture clinging to his skin and running renewed down the back of his neck as he makes his careful way onto the rooftop, moving so as not to stand behind Gillian. His expression is neutral beneath the bruises, or— was, eyes narrowing at Peter before darting a look towards Gillian as if to judge what next to do by her reaction.
Which tells him Peter's on the back foot. "I had a bad night," Gabriel snaps back as brown eyes switch back to glare at the younger man, certainly not backing away under Peter's gestures and harsh tone. His own holds a warning, as if to say, without saying it, back off. "And it's none of your concern."
That same confused look washes over Peter at Gillian's reaction, eyes widening as he tries to sort out exactly what was just said, then narrowing as he heard Gabriel's continued retorts. His shoulders square, and Peter takes a step around Gillian, forgetting himself for a moment. "None of my business?" One hand flings in the direction of the burning ruins of Midtown, "If you had anything to do with— You don't even have an ability anymore!" Teeth clench together, jaws set, and Peter turns that look towards Gillian. "What the hell happened? Do you— what happened out there?"
He's practically shaking now, both from the cold of the rain and the anger welling up in him, anger that he's had little ability to control over the last few weeks. "Where have you even been? I've been worried sick that you were going to— you just ran off and never came back for another— " Biting down on his lower lip, Peter turns to look at Gabriel, accusingly, and then finally that last rattling bit in his head comes together as a piece of the puzzle for this evening fits into place. It's getting easier lately, to puzzle things out.
"What— " he notices Gabriel favoring one leg more than another, an arm tucked close to himself. He doesn't have a power, so how could he have done that. "What happened?" It's calmer when it's asked this time, and Peter finally remembers the phone, tucking it into a pocket. "Why— why're you two here?"
As they talk, Gillian can't help but grit her teeth, though she nods at first to Gabriel's words. Bad night. Bad week. Bad year. They've all had them. It's Peter that makes her jaw tighten the most. All of it— Even when getting called on running off and not coming back makes her flinch.
"A lot— a lot happened," she explains, brokenly, not really giving a good response to why she didn't come sooner. Why she never came back. The thing that carried words she shouldn't have heard to her ears has disappeared. That's faded to give way to something else. Something a little less recognizable by her as anything at all. The rain gets a little stronger on the rooftop. Not quite a sheet, but more rain, faster drops, enough to start plastering her hair down against her face, bangs sticking together in thick black locks. The cold rain actually doesn't bother her as much as it should— a side effect of what she's tapping into, even if she has no idea at all what it is, and no conscious control over it.
"We came here cause I needed to learn— and because we needed to talk. All of us. The talk we were supposed to have when everything got fucked up."
"Been busy," Gabriel says, a concurrence to Gillian's words, about them needing to talk. An offer of an explanation as to why it hasn't happened yet, but accusation as well, his gaze not leaving Peter as the rain patters down, bouncing off broad shoulders and plasters his hair against his forehead and the nape of his neck, lanky and running with the onslaught of water that no one seems to care about.
He keeps an arm close, defensively protective from both the pull of gravity and perceived, possible threats lurking in every corner. "I ran into one of the time travelers. Rickham. It takes a lot of fire to fight a man made of iron." There's a scuff of the soles of his boots against concrete as he steps forward a little more. "Things got out of hand. By the way, this would be when I was out looking for them.
"What have you done?"
The sneer is audible in his voice and visible on his face. "I have Gillian's ability, you have mine, but we're not invalids." Apparently once his hackles are up, they don't come down so willingly.
All that calming down for nothing, despite Gillian's best attempts to soothe Peter by explaining the situation, Gabriel's choise of words and barbs jerks Peter's focus back to him with decidedly frustrated results. "Are you out of your goddamned mind!?" Peter blurts out, shouldering past Gillian to walk towards Gabriel, "Are you completely insane!?" Both arms fly out wildly as Peter approaches the other man, one hand moving back to slick his hair away from his face, one errant lock slapping back down to his forehead after.
"I was at Pinehearst trying to figure out how to stop the Company after Roger Goodman was murdered!" There's a lowering of Peter's brows as he blurts that out, a secret kept from Gillian, one that bodes ill for the preservation of the future she'd been told of. "So did you stop him? Did you kill him? Did you maybe figure out why he was here? Why he's come back?" Dark eyes narrow to slits as he bears down on Gabriel, moving too close to the other man's personal space, so close that Peter's breath can be felt with each word.
"Or did you just do what comes naturally and screw everything up again?" His head nods in the direction of Midtown, one brow lower than the other, lips pulled back into a sneer. At some point between the last time Gabriel saw him and now, Peter grew a spine. It's not particularly becoming of him.
What she's learned of the future that the time travelers come from or went to certainly seems to be royally fucked over. Large bits and pieces of it. Not just cause other things are pointing towards futures that could be just almost as bad as the one that was seen the first time someone she knows got thrown forward. Gillian stumbles away a step or two as Peter shoulders by her, blinking as her eyes follow, looking between him and the man she came with. They're both acting aggressive, for different reasons.
In a way, it reminds her of the argument he had with her, when she didn't want him going out alone. They're not invalids. They aren't useless. They don't need to hide in a safehouse.
Roger Goodman murdered. While she never cared much for the man, barely knew him, that makes her blink. The longer this goes on, the heavier the rain gets, but the fact that he's grew a spine isn't very like him at all. It doesn't fit with what little she knew of the man. And there's something not right. "Jesus— I'm sorry Goodman's dead, but it wasn't like no one knew where to find us." They'd been in a Ferry safehouse after all. The future's all fucked up and maybe there's nothing they can do about it, and she's not so sure what they should do right now, anyway…
Again, Gabriel is inclined to stand his ground, despite the aching hurts littering his body, as Peter stalks on closer. There's a raise of a smirk at his mouth, because while it might not be becoming of Peter to grow a spine, it sure is entertaining. The enjoyment of such quickly drains away at those pointed barrage of questions and then that last accusation which make Gabriel's eyes go cold and his expression go mask-like.
"I've been doing what I can," he says off the back of Gillian's words, showing his teeth a little with contained aggression. "With what I know. Hiding behind daddy's coat and here has so far gotten us nowhere."
And so, Peter is shoved. A slam of the heels of Gabriel's palms against the other man's chest, propelling him back as far as he might stagger, and only a little weakness from the injured arm. It's a far cry from throwing Peter over the edge of the roof with a flick of his finger, but it's all he has to work with, really. "Have you even learned my power? Have you even tried?"
Of course not. Gillian's gone to Peter for lessons, Gabriel's taken Gillian's advice, but the circle so far remains open, broken. It's almost insulting.
Shoved back, Peter's face reddens as his awareness of Gillian completely melts away. "All you did was start a fire that could spread into the city! What good did you actually do?" Peter takes a few steps forward, shoving right back in the same motion of both hands, pushing Gabriel back the same few steps Gabriel had shoved him. "All you know how to do is kill and destroy!" Peter takes another step forward towards Gabriel, breathing in a sharp breath through his nose.
"Why would I want to learn anything about your ability!? All you ever did with it was hurt people and ruin lives! Or do you want me to do to Helena what you did to Gillian's sister!" Those words, for all their weight, may as well have been the sound of a gunshot for the force they carry behind them. A secret, one dark and terrible, apparently has been laid on Peter by Gillian, and it is one that in a time of weakness, he slings back at Gabriel like a stone.
"Why would I want to be anything like you."
With all the shoving going on, the fact it seems they have forgotten the fact she's there at ALL, Gillian just opens and closes her mouth a few times as if she might be trying to interupt him. The words might make it out, hoarse, but the rain, and their own yelling drowns them out. They probably pretty much just amounted to a simple 'Will you guys stop?' anyway. It doesn't stop the shoves, or the yelling, or the pointed and angry comments.
He hasn't tried. It's not something she really wanted him to try, but it would have been something. The dark haired girl, with the thick locks of bangs hanging in her eyes, isn't really able to do much more besides step back a few steps and watch them, shake her head— and then freeze in place when her sister is mentioned. The sister that isn't really her sister. Who was killed by the man she was falling in love with, why she fell in love with him, a man she stayed with despite that…
Something else about it makes a crackle of lightning toss down from the sky, striking well away from the roof, near the twisted overgrown outer fences, sending a roar of thunder through the air that sends light tremors along the building. Reddish lips are parted with heavy breath, but no words make it out, yet again.
The shove is expected, a flash through Gabriel's eyes that communicates some form of fire and life while also containing a wince. Bruised ribs ache and protest, a damaged leg is a weak thing to stumble back on, but he's certainly not about to fall. The words, however—
Gabriel's heart is hammering by the time his fist has followed through in a punch to Peter's mouth, near as fast as the lightning crack and just as vicious, an ugly scowl painting itself on the former killer's face. "You know nothing about me," he growls. "If you even had a clue about my ability, midtown would never have happened." There was a flash of something in the time it took for Gabriel's fist to meet Peter's face, a pulse of a purple glow both in his eyes in that moment of contact, barely anything but a reminder, and only then does it occur to Gabriel to rein it in—
— before his hand is going out again to snag Peter's arm, eyes glowing with dark purple and the same preternatural glow coming from his fingers. "Maybe it's time you learned," he spits, a little brokenly, as rain continues to drown all three. It's almost a good feeling, warm, a subtle shimmer beneath the macho anger although not overriding it.
Peter takes the punch like a nurse would, meaning his head jerks back and he staggers with the punch. Whatever it is Gabriel is saying, he can't hear it over the peal of thunder and the blood rushing behind his ears. He turns, blood trickling from a split in the front of his lip that won't heal, the same pain throbbing in his jaw that he felt on the receiving end of Vinnie's blows in Moab. Peter lunges forward, winding up with one hand balled up into a fist that smacks Gabriel across the jaw, followed by his free hand grasping at his collar to pull him close, and deliver another punch to the same spot.
"You murdered Ted! You killed Molly's parents!" Another punch, this time splitting skin on Gabriel's brow as Peter topples forward in his momentum with him, tripping over the wooden planters of the rooftop garden, winding up on top of Gabriel, "You're a monster!" Peter winds up again, only then realizing that Gabriel has been holding one of his arms the entire time. Breathing comes through clenched jaws, and Peter's eyes go wild, shoulders rising and falling as he breathes in deeply, staring down at Gabriel with his whole body trembling.
Eyes wander over Gabriel's brow, as purple crackling sparks of energy surge and spark up and down Peter's shoulders, until finally he reaches out and grabs a small hand-shovel from the wet earth of the flower bed, holding it backwards in one hand. "Maybe you're right," Peter breathes down onto Gabriel, straining his words through clenched teeth, "Maybe it's time I found out what makes you tick."
Splitting foreheads? That brings back memories. But the worst thing is the sudden realization that someone's hands are glowing. Someone is activating a power that threw a man who might have loved her even then into a fit that made him, against his will, attack her. If history repeats, if the circle is completed— Gillian's eyes widen in the rain, her contribution no longer fueled cause the emotion becomes something far different, sudden anxiety, even fear, paranoia, as she moves forward, feet suddenly much lighter than they should be, allowing her to actually leap into the air instead of run.
It's new to her, she's not used to it at all, but it covers distance pretty fast. Thank god she doesn't have low ceilings to worry about right now… Uncontrolled, relatively unaware of what she's even doing, she just reaches for Peter's arm, the one holding the shovel, both hands wrapping around tightly. Her strength is normal, though, and her body weight has been dropped, but at the same time it's transfering to him, making it easier, perhaps, for them to be shoved away.
"Stop it! Stop it! Both of you need to stop this! Please!" Her voice is hoarse, yelled, trying to penetrate the rain and all other things that she can't speak through.
Rain and dirt can be studied at intense detail where it makes patterns on the spade hovering above his head, mouth parting in muted shock, a kind of reverse de ja vu. Peter is a weight on top of him that makes old and new bruises and aches cry out, enough to dazzle Gabriel despite the arm clasped to Peter's in dogged determination. Blood streaks from his brow, smears on the top of his lip—
And he's smiling, a heave off laughter that sounds more like pain than mirth, but wild. "Now you know," he rasps out, singsong despite himself. "Enjoy."
But not with him. Through the pain of being battered, he can feel Peter's weight lessen, and he doesn't know why just that it is. Gillian's raspy, trilling demands are so much noise but he sees her hand grip onto Peter's arm, and uses the moment to break his grip from Peter's arm, grasp his shirt and yank— him into a headbutt, followed by a shove, as wild as any cornered animal. The thread of augmentation is cut. It's played its part.
Peter's arm is pulled back by Gillian, his focus shifted to her as Gabriel's words are spat out at him with that sing-song delight. Just for a moment Peter seems at a loss for what to do, forestalled from his impromptu labotomy of the man beneath him by Gillian's touch. But then, as he turns to look back at Gabriel, a forehead is smashed into the bridge of his nose, and Peter flies backwards, his elbow jerking back into Gillian's mouth unintentionally, sending her sprawling back onto the ground as he is knocked off of Gabriel.
Peter lands on his side, the garden trawl scuttling across the roof, coming to a stop out of arm's reach. Peter wheels around, balling up a fist before leaning back into another swing, his hand connecting to Gabriel's shoulder in a terribly thrown swing thanks to blurred vision and spots in his eyes from the headbutt. "You son of a bitch!" Peter hisses out, blood running down from a gash across the bridge of his nose as he takes a running start to dive and tackle Gabriel.
Making them light had some disadvantages. They went even further than they might have, and after the initial force, Gillian lets go of him, still light, and tumbles even further. Bruises and scrapes are likely going to be a result here, and she's down for a few seconds as the men start to toss punches and call names again. She blinks, looking down at her hands, shivering as the cold rain suddenly sinks in. When did it get so cold and why didn't she notice it before?
Breathing unsteady, she looks up, pushing herself onto her knees to turn back and watch them as the fight gets more and more brutal. It was already bad, but headbutting, tackling… "Stop," she tries again, though she's not sure the words will work. She still feels light, which makes getting to her feet a little easier at least, the strain not much on her knees or joints. A strong gust might blow her away if she isn't careful.
"Peter! Gabriel!, will you fucking quit it!" Despite getting knocked away once already, she moves closer to them, but doesn't physically try to seperate them again. Just yet.
Gabriel goes down heavily as Peter tackles him as only a former watchmaker might, a shoulder burying into his stomach and the ground impacting hard against his back. Oof. Momentum has them both rolling as Gabriel forces them along with it, a hand gripping a handful of Peter's hair to make sure they do, a knee burying in Peter's stomach.
His fist cocks back again to deliver another blow, even as Gillian screams across at him to stop. Smears of fresh red are being eroded away by the rain, clear rivulets of water over older bruises and cuts, and the blow comes down across Peter's face, no flash of augmentation, just the thud of bone and flesh. Far from the destruction they can wreck when they both have their powers, as the scar of Midtown over the horizon is a tribute to, this is frustrating. Hands can only do so much.
And they can't convey anger, which Gabriel is brimming with. Thunderstorms, telekinetic throws, explosions of radiation - these are good ways to express yourself. The wet slap of a fist against a cheek is nothing in comparison.
They can't hear Gillian. No matter how much she shouts, something terrible has been awoken in Peter, and it is fueling this rematch from their battle in the Bronx that has been so long coming. "I should've killed you when I had the chance!" Blood runs in a drooling line from Peter's crooked lips as he slurs out those words, winding up to lay a punch square across Gabriel's jaw. Peter exhaustedly staggers with the punch, shoulders heaving and breathing coming in unsteady rythm. Sometime, somehow, during the fight Peter's cell phone was knocked out of his pocket, it now lies face up on the rooftop, flashing brightly with an incoming call he is too enraged to pick up.
Both hands lunge forward, wrapping around bruises on Gabriel's throat as Peter drags him down into the dirt of the rooftop garden again, pulling him up by the column of his throat only to smack the back of his head against the boards that serve as a border for the garden. "I should've done this a long time ago," he slurs his words, drunk on the bloodlust of being faced with the man he had only reluctantly called an ally, and more welcomingly called a nemesis.
One hand reaches out, grasping for that trawl that was discarded into the initial fight, dirty and blood-spattered fingers feeling for the handle, even as he tries to keep Gabriel pinned by the throat. Blood runs free across Peter's face from down his forehead, blurs his vision and adds to the ache in his stomach from Gabriel's earlier knee.
His body screams in pain, but maybe here, in the pouring rain and crashing thunder, he can finally make all of it go away. Fingers find purchase on the beveled wooden handle, gripping it tightly as once more it is raised up into the air, swung down on a wild downwards arc towards Gabriel's forehead.
They're not listening. They can't notice anything outside of their little fight. Gillian's not even sure they noticed when she reached out to grab his arm. Once again she's on his feet, while they pull hair, punch, and while Peter speaks over the rain. Each word heard fairly clearly. Every detail of the moment filed away for later. This isn't what was supposed to happen. This isn't how it should have gone. "Stop," she tries yelling out in a raspy voice, sounding even tighter than a moment ago. Keeping her distance would be safer, but once again she can't.
Ignoring the ringing phone, the phone that Peter isn't even noticing, she moves forward again, light on her feet, and tries to grab onto Peter, while she pleadingly looks at Gabriel. She's afraid for him. First hand experience of being attacked by someone under the influence makes her fear for what could happen to him, the scars that could be left.
Peter is the main aggressor, in this case, the one with the weapon, though Gabriel isn't doing much to make it end. Hairpulling and stomach kneeing? Their fight is vicious, even if only distructive to themselves. Once again Peter's the one she reaches for, getting his shirt rather than his arm, the lightness slower to spreading to him this time. "Peter, fucking stop! This isn't you!" she yells, pulling on him, putting herself rather bodily in the mix. If only she were accessing an ability she had the slightest idea how to use. "You didn't kill him before and— please." The chances they'll listen might increase if she yells louder, so she certainly tries. "Gabriel!"
He's brought this on himself, and Peter's hands find a weak point. Gabriel's throat is bruised, inside and out, and something about the clasp to it lets a trickle of genuine fear spike his adrenaline, enough to make his legs go, injured or not, and be pulled down into the dirt that spatters his face as readily as blood. The knock to the back of his head wakes up former bruises and makes him go blind for the moment it takes for shock to clear his vision.
Tasting rain and red as he gasps in air beneath Peter's choking hold, Gabriel's hands clasp the other man's arm, a desperate, clawing hold, eyes wide and locked— fascinated— on the other man's face. Gillian's foot steps are soft on the ground as she rushes in the same moment as—
The spade comes down, and his vision goes nova. It'll take more tries than that to get to the goods— he knows— but it's enough to stun the erstwhile serial killer, grip on Peter's arm slackening, the struggle leaking out of him. Blood runs hot and fast— it's always worse than it looks but the same crimson paints the shovel as much as the rain tries to work it away— and Gabriel's eyes lose focus. He brought this on, and if he's sorry, it doesn't show.
Metal scrapes against bone in a horrifying manner, and Peter can feel the tactile sensations of every vibration in the rough wood handle as he raises his arm up again, just when Gillian grabs a hold of his sleeve. Peter struggles, trying to get the hand-shovel down again to make purchase on the front of Gabriel's head. "He's mine!" Peter shouts, winding up and backhanding Gillian across the face with the hand that holds the shovel, cutting a thin long across her cheek with the side. The moment that hit connects, and the moment Peter sees her light frame knocked back, feels that momentary lightness in himself and sees the blood running down her face and not Gabriel's, everything stops.
Peter is left hunched over Gabriel, eyes transfixed on Gillian, then down at the small spade in his hand. He lets out a horrified gasp and drops the shovel with a clatter to the flagstone on the roof. Peter falls back and away off of Gabriel, scrambling and clawing at the ground as he tries to push himself away, a terrified look in his eyes, one of horror and disgust as the palpable waves of fear emanate off of him and onto Gillian. It's something she can feel down in her heart, Peter's fear is almost intoxicating to her in the way that s releases adrenaline into her system, and makes her feel lighter, stronger.
He's horrified.
No. No. Gillian had still been yelling the name of the man getting attacked when it cut off into a rasped yell of pain as blood rose to the surface and she got knocked away. It's a light fall, but that doesn't mean it won't leave more marks. It doesn't mean when she pushes herself up to look at them that she doesn't have a clench of pain across her face. The blood isn't thick, thinned even by the rain and the damp, but the fear— what's coming through the air like waves of strength make her hands grip on the flagstone. Fingers that shouldn't be able to do anything to it end up tearing into it, digging finger trails as she pushes herself to her feet.
"Are you done yet?" she says, voice carrying the pain that's painted across her face, the slash which cuts across her cheek standing out for a moment before she walks purposely over to try and get between them, picking up the garden tool as she does. She hates this thing. What it did, what it started. Hand wrapping around it, the grip tightens to the point that the metal twists and bends around her fingers, like it's made of something different.
"Are you happy?" she turns her snap at Gabriel. "You knew something like that would happen. You fucking knew." Because it happened to her, it happened with her. It was what made him realize it might be his power making him feel that way in the first place. "You were already hurt! And— fuck."
He's not unconscious. Gabriel is really unhappy about this. Peter's arm falls out of his loose grip as the man scrabbles away, dazed and drowning in rain, head turning so he might breathe without ice water running up his sinuses and down his throat. His hand weakly grasps at the dirt as he rolls to his side, fingernails packing with it, graveyard rich. Blood makes ruby spiderwebs down his face, head wounds bleed worse than they are, mingling with other tracks from opened injury.
Gillian is yelling at him and he's not convinced his head hasn't cracked completely open. "Now— now he knows," Gabriel rasps out, voice breaking, before his eyes slide shut. He doesn't intend to open them, if he gets his way, here is fine as he lays the uninjured side of his head down on bent arm. Breathing.
Now he knows.
Those words drill into Peter's head with searing hot revelations. His hands tremble, fingers shaking as he pushes himself back continuously, toppling over a lawn chair as he does, scrambling up to his feet with a shaky stance, eyes wide and breathing heavy as his shoulders give a rise and fall. Every part of Peter's body trembles; fingers and hands rattle unsteadily as he tries to cover his face, looking down at the bent and bloodied remains of the hand-shovel, then over to Gillian's bleeding cut on her cheek, then down to Gabriel's prone form.
Worst yet, is what comes next, as he wordlessly begins to stagger his way towards the stairwell behind himself, stumbling over another piece of lawn furniture, toppling an already cracked garden gnome off of a cinderblock it was resting on, palms smoothing along concrete until he reaches the door, shakily trying to jiggle it open as his hands fail to make the proper motions to turn the knob so he can just run.
Again.
Yes. Now he knows. And even if he needed to learn, it's the method in which he learned that had Gillian so angry at the man who outright made himself a victim. It's the tumbling and the stumbling that draws her eyes to the fleeing man, jiggling with the door. "God damnit," she growls as she keeps her fingers wrapped around bent metal of the garden tool and moving after him.
"You're a nurse, Peter. And you did this. You called him a monster and now you know what made him that way. And if you fucking run instead of coming over here and fucking helping him…" Gabriel didn't come back to help her. Gabriel ran away when he snapped out of it. But she told him to leave. She told him to get out. And part of her wonders how things would have changed if she hadn't.
"You can't keep running everytime something goes badly. You can help him. And I can't." No healing power. No nursing skills. The most she could do is fine somewhere to take him. "But if you hurt him again I'll crush your fucking hands." It's an empty threat, cause she has no idea how to make this ability happen again. But when her fingers are wrapped around a bent metal garden tool…
If there's one thing that has always, historically, gotten Peter's attention it is that of a strong-willed and confident woman. His mother had always bent him around her finger for this, and it is likely because of their strong relationship that he has always had a weakness for assertive females. He winces at the tone of her voice, hesitates and looks towards Gabriel's bloodied and battered form. It's some twisted sense of irony, that now that he's done all of this damage, he has to be the one to make it some form of right again.
"I— " trembling hands are unsteady and unskilled in this frame of mind, Peter's thought swim and vertigo begins to set in as a sickening feeling settles in the pit of his stomach. There's a harsh, wet gurgle as Peter clamps one hand over his mouth and staggers over towards the roof edge, retching out what little stomach contents he did have over the side of the railing, rain running down his face, mixing with blood in pink rivulets.
"Bathroom— " Peter breathes out the word, motioning to Gillian, "th— there's a first aid kid, it's in the bathroom, ground floor." A panting, gasping breath draws in and out thorugh Peter's parted lips as he remains hunched over the railing, burping once after he finishes speaking.
When she doesn't have to physically force him, Gillian looks faintly relieved, even in her tenseness. The smell still comes off of him in waves, making her feel stronger by the second, and in a way it makes her more confident as well. The threat of moment's past… she could follow through with it if she wished to. The crushed spade is dropped finally, gently enough, so that with her additional strength it doesn't do much more than crack the tile… sorry tile. If she'd tossed it, it probably would have been worse.
"Let's all get inside and take care of him," she says, moving over to look at the man. In much the same way she lifted Peter up when she was in metal form, she bends down to hook her arms underneath the much MUCH taller man, and lift him up like he's not much of a burden at all. She's not a tall woman, not large, so the image could be considered funny, with his height.
"You're going to be okay, Gabriel," she tries to give assurances, though with all the blood spiderwebbing down his face… even with the fact she was mad at him, she can't help but try to give him that much. "Just don't try anything like that again."
"Come on, Peter. I'm not bringing the first aid kit up here," she says. Not just cause that would mean leaving the two men who just tried to beat the shit out of each other— and kill each other… but it is wet and it'd get soaked anyway.
Oh god what's going on. Gabriel's fingers actually hook like claws against the soft dirt, like a cat desiring to cling to the carpet, when strong, skinny arms go to heft him up. The only good that does it leave four thin trenches in the ground and pack black beneath his fingernails, a hissing groan emitting from the injured man, the concussion at least stilling his tongue from making the situation worse from himself.
You're going to be okay. Pride-side, not so much.
Gabriel's hand clasps onto a fistful of Gillian's shirt at her back, attempting to lift his head a fraction as the world seems to simply spin through levitation. He closes his eyes. This will all be over soon, or someone will throw him over the side and— this will all be over soon.
Peter doesn't move from the railing of the roof the whole time Gillian is gathering up Gabriel, his shaky frame hunched over the roof, not even watching her until the sound of footsteps heading in to the stairwell sound out, and Peter finally and languidly pushes himself up on unsteady arms, and begins walking to the stairs.
The whole way down to the first floor, Peter looks like he's sick to his stomach, his adam's apple bobbing up and down every so often in dry swallows to an anxious stomach, watching the drooling trail of blood Gabriel is leaving on the floor behind Gillian, even if that is becoming harder by the minute from the swelling around one of his eyes from that headbutt.
By the time they arrive on the ground floor, Peter haphazardly directs Gillian to briag Gabriel over to the couch, while he retreives the first-aid kit from the bathroom. Peter disappears in the direction of the bathroom, leaving Gillian and Gabriel alone in the living room under light of hanging halogen lamps running off of a thrumming generator in the basement.
The less contact with Peter, the less the strength feels like it will stick around. It holds until Gillian gets the pride-battered man down to the ground floor, and directed to where she can set him down. Putting him down as gently as she can, she settles at his side with a heavy breath, feeling most of the strength draining away. It held long enough— she got a lot of fear and anxiety off of the man who did this. And she's sure some of it would have been her own, if that would have been enough.
"Men— always proving points with your fists," she rasps quietly as she shifts to pull of her jacket, and then pull her shirt off. Both are damp and making her shiver, but there's a second reason for this— she's finds the driest part of the shirt and uses it to press against his forehead while she waits, to try and slow the bleeding until the nurse gets back with the first aid kit. It's about her knowledge of what to do… apply pressure, slow bleeding. Basic stuff seen on television all the time. And what she did for herself when he cut her forehead open after she was able to get off the floor. "Fucking wish I would have made a point to go visit Abby now. Least then maybe I could do something about this."
There's a mutter in her voice, but the most she can do is what she's doing now. Wearing a black bra and a bunch of tattoos. It's nothing they've not both seen before anyway.
At least the blood has somewhere to go, Gabriel only twitching instinctively when the pressure is applied but otherwise remaining still once he's set back down, and his eyes slide shut. A hand lazily goes up, covered in grime and rainwater, resting over the hand setting the balled up shirt against his forehead, ponders whether he's going to get his own super cool scar to wear like a medal of some kind.
Thoughts rattle in his skull like shaken marbles. It should occur to him to point out that Peter might not be the best person to treat him right now, certificates and qualifications or no, but he doesn't. Either he hasn't the mind to, or it's all a part of a test.
Considering the way his eyes open, focus on nothing, and close again as concussion tugs at consciousness like a needy child and it's mother's sleeve, likely the former. He didn't actually think this through, surprise surprise. If he even realises what Gillian is having Peter do, anyway.
In the time it takes for Peter to come back from the bathroom, he looks to have gained his composure some, carrying the white metal box in both hands as he moves wordlessly to the side of the sofa, brows furrowed. There's a slow, awkward swallow as he crouches down, setting the first-aid kit on the table beside the couch, then turn to look at Gillian as he flips the lid open. "I'm doing this for you," he mutters, "not for him." Antibacterial spray, gauze, cotton swabs, needle and thread all are withdrawn from the case, in ascending order of grim purpose.
Looking down at the implements, then back up at Gillian, Peter's brow furrows faintly, watching her in a more inspecting manner than he has in the past. There's something scrutinizing in the look he gives her, then slowly his focus goes down to the implements he laid out. "I'm… not sorry," he finally adds, before picking up the spray and looking to Gabriel, "not sorry that this is going to sting."
Once the nurse settles down with them, Gillian moves her hand, and the shirt away from the wound, reaching for his hand and pulling it along with her so she can set it against her still clothed leg. Damp pants as they might be, she's trying her best to block out the sense of shivers that still want to run through her. For a while she didn't even notice the cold of the rain at all— and now she is. Hair hangs around her face, not covering the slash across her cheek, but hanging into her eyes as well as she looks up at the nurse, shifting back enough to give him better access, but not far enough that she can't hold onto Gabriel's hand.
"I'm not happy with what he did— he shouldn't have done that to you— or himself. You could have have killed him," she shakes her head, jaw tightening again as she squeezes his hands— in a non-crushing way. It's going to hurt, but he'll have hands to hold onto while it does.
"But you are wrong. What he did— it's not who he is. Not anymore than what you did up there— Just like you're fighting it now— he's been fighting it too." There's goosebumps standing on her arms, and the bra isn't leaving too much to the imagination, but she's studing him and what he's doing just as closely as he studied her. "And thank you. For not running away this time." With that, she'll go quiet so he can be a 'totally not sorry' nurse, and so she can hold the other man's hand.
People are moralising above him. A majority of him wants to tell them to get the fuck out but that will at the moment have to be communicated in the way his hand is cold and slack in Gillian's hand, a dead fish in its lack of affection, despite having reached for the contact. He's angry, and hurt, and satisfied, as well as utterly disoriented. His eyes have been open since the pressure's been alleviated from his head and brown eyes now slide to look at Peter and the spray bottle, then up towards his battered face with a blank look that a shark would envy.
Gabriel's hand twitches in Gillian's. "I'm not— not the one who needs fixing," he says, voice coming out slurred. It's all the fuck off he can manage.
Halfway with the bottle of sanitizer towards Gabriel's brow, those words still Peter's hand. He tenses, looking down at the man on the sofa, one brow twitching slightly before he tosses the small plastic bottle and the cotton swabs onto Gabriel's chest, "Fix yourself, then." There's a spitting quality to those words as Peter pushes himself up to his feet, wiping the back of his damp hand across his split lip, scowling down at the floor more so than anything, that deep scar across his forehead caked with dried blood now from the injuries sustained over the course of the evening.
"He can go to hell, Gillian, and you know what— " Peter spits a bloody patch of saliva on the floor, tongue rolling around in his mouth, "so can you." He turns, wiping at the blood on his cheeks as he begins to tread towards the door, limping slightly on his left side from the shooting pain in his hip, one of the many injuries suffered today that will be long in passing to heal.
Gillian stares at the injured man, who slurs out his own attempt at a fuck off, and then at the ex-nurse's reaction to it. A reaction that he turns on her. For a stunned instant, she can't even grip the man's hand anymore, she just sits there and stares at him as he limps away. The conversation with Eve immediately flashes through her mind, each word that she uttered replaying briefly while he treads away.
She can go to hell?
"If we can go to hell then we're all on the same track, Peter. You as fucking well." she says, reaching to press the cloth on the man's broken forehead once again, even if she's not really looking at him closely. She's looking at the man she just thanked for not running away. Who happens to be running away. Running away seems to be in his nature. Hiding.
"You are going to need help, Peter. And— " Her voice is always strain, and since she's shivering and cold, it's even more so, but for a moment it's breaking too. The rain caused make up to run, her hair blocks most of it— but there's new moisture in her eyes. And it's not just the rain and the cut, either. "I need help, too. Please."
The longer they stay in the same room, the worse it's going to get, or of this Gabriel is certain. The idea of Peter stitching up the wounds he'd just laid down, the reopened cuts he'd had a coroner and his sidekick stitch together the previous night— the man had taken a spade to his head.
Gillian's well-meaning gesture is evaded as gently as possible, if only because harsher movements make the world start to spin again, Gabriel's hands coming to collect the sanitiser bottle and swabs on his chest, dig a heel into the couch, and force himself to sit up. Or at least rest curving shoulders against the arm of the couch, head back against it as well.
Likely bleeding onto furniture from where Peter had smacked the former serial killer's head against a wooden edge. "The road's diverged," he mutters, not quite looking at Gillian. His hand movements are slow as he douses a cotton swab in cleansing chemical. "Same direction but that's all. Not my choice." He flicks a glance back up to her face, and there's no true anger, even if he's feeling it, when he requests; "Go away."
Turning to look over his shoulder at Gillian, Peter's brows lower into a frustrated look as his hands move up to the damp collar of s jacket, flipping it up to cover the back of his neck. Dark eyes flick down to Gabriel, then back up to Gillian. He turns on Gabriel's note — one not truly addressed to him — sharply, and slams the hand that doesn't have split and bloodied knuckles to the front door, flinging it open hard enough that it slams into the wall adjacent to the doorway.
As Peter leaves through the front door into the driving rain, the cell phone left abandoned on the roof rings again, and the flashing display on the front simply reads the same thing it did last time.
Dad.
Those tears that had already started to form fall when Gillian closes her eyes, pulling her hands away as she's not really wanted to help anyway. "Gabriel…" she manages to say simply, before she lets it trail off. If she'd sounded hurt while she was yelling at Peter, that dug deep too. In some ways it's a mirror of what happened when she was attacked—
While one person leaves after punching away, she pulls away to unravel the crumpled and bloody shirt so she can pull it back on, her long hair stuck under the collar.
Standing, she grabs the discarded jacket and pulls that on too, before moving quickly— though not at super speeds at least— to leave out the main entrance. The one she knows. Two of them came to the building, now two of them leave. Only it's not the same two, and none of them are on the same track anymore.