palmstraps | Are you waiting, are you wishing, are you wanting all that she can't give?

Are you waiting, are you wishing, are you wanting all that she can't give?

Niles was working late. More than settled in Defiance, now that Amanda was working for him. Better than that, she understood him. For the first time since he'd been a teenager, he shared the story of what had happened to him. Gabe had always told him that it was a terrible idea. It was better if only the two of them knew that horrible nightmare. But Gabe hadn't been there with him. Hadn't been there when his truck was held up and he was forced to strip. He didn't understand. He'd escaped that awful eleven days as one of the lucky few who hadn't been subjected to that awful treatment. And when Amanda had asked, he'd refused to share. Remembering his friend's words of warning. Of what someone might think of him. But with Amanda there, so caring and so gentle without prying, he'd opened up in a way he hadn't thought possible.

He felt better than he could ever remember. Amanda was finally warming to him. His plan with Doctor Yewll was going as smoothly as could be expected, now that the possible tech had been procured. Soon he'd be able to play the hero and rescue the sister thought dead. He'd be a hero and she'd never doubt him again. The only shadow over it all was that he hadn't heard from Gabe in almost a week. Not since his roller had been attacked.

That's how it always went, it seemed. Gabe couldn't be found when Niles needed him more than anything. Especially when it related to that day in particular. Just as he hadn't been there the day he'd been attacked. Yet he always seemed so incredibly jealous that Connor had been the one there to comfort Niles. It was something that he frequently questioned but tried so hard to not think about. Of everyone, Gabe had escaped without much in the way of injury. The rest of the students shunned him after that, and seemed to think Niles unwell for sticking by his friend.

Niles set down his pen, rubbing at the bridge of his nose in the dim light of his office. He needed to figure out a way to get Amanda unconscious. Deep enough that she could be given an injection in the back of her neck and not be woken up. Gabe was usually such a good sounding board for these things. Where the hell was he?

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The front door opens, the sound of keys jingling slightly. A brief interlude of silence, followed by a familiar voice ringing out in the hallway.

"I don't understand Defiance." He enters the room, hoodie half-way zipped, blue T-shirt, messenger bag slung over one shoulder, jeans ratty enough to look well worn but not filthy. Youthful looks, accented by an easy smile.

It's been more than a week of silence. Gabe comes and goes, but always comes back. Not for a while, it seemed. One of his longer disappearances.

"Everyone living in peace... It's noble, but will it really work?" He rounds the corner, sitting casually on the opposite side of the desk. He puts his feet up like he owns the place, and dips his hand in a bag of chip-like snacks, eating one before looking at the other. "Penny for your thoughts?"

Edited 2015-06-15 07:06 (UTC)

By the time Niles lowers his hand from his face, Gabe is already settling himself opposite him. Some how, Niles never seemed to be looking when Gabe entered a room, unless the door stood open. This was a fact Niles himself never seemed to realize. Gabe just had timing like that. He always did.

"Feet off the desk," he snapped, his voice sharp and stern. "Why aren't you in uniform?" Somewhere along the way, it just made sense that Gabe was in the Republic, just as Niles was. It had never been mentioned outright and never once had he seen Gabe in uniform, but it's what made sense. How his friend was able to follow him around the world. Devon to London to Copenhagen to New York and now Defiance. Always there at his side, more faithful and reliant than even Berlin.

He brushed his own question aside before the other could answer. "It's not my place to question, only maintain. Provisional Mayorship lacks the necessary authority to enact real change."

His feet don't leave the desk. He continues eating, watching the other carefully. He wipes the crumbs from his hands onto his jeans, arched his feet as if stretching, and unzipped the hoodie casually.

"You were thinking about Amanda, weren't you?" His voice suggests this is all in fun. All curious, catty school-boy dorm talk. His lips quirk into a playful tease.

There's something darker, though. A hint of something in his eyes. Like he's about to lean over. "Think you can win her if you make her sister?"

Niles tried to make a show of returning to his paper work, as if he could actually ignore Gabe's presence. His friend was the only one who he never forced to listen to him, never punished for insubordination. "You've made your opinion of her more than clear," he said, not really seeing the papers before him.

But that's not what was weighing on Niles' mind. He'd let it slide far too often, and he couldn't take it anymore. Not with Gabe acting like everything was fine. He could keep himself together around anyone else, because no one else knew him. And telling Amanda about it all had just torn those old wounds open further, making it harder to push everything down again.

"You were supposed to be in that roller with me," he snapped. "Not Berlin. You whould have been there after to..." His shoulders fell and he shook his head. "I haven't even told you what happened." He rubbed at his forehead, not quite looking at Gabe, just at his feet where they rested on his desk.

The roller. Berlin.

Berlin... Gabe didn't like Berlin, but she did her job and wasn't close to Niles. Niles, the schoolboy he shared a room with. The kid who had just about busted a nut when he brought Connor into the room while he grabs the football.

No, Gabe tolerated Berlin. She was a low priority on the threat list. The hadn't felt the need to whisper in that ear and touch Niles' malleable mind.

He's mid-way chip-to-mouth when the other snaps, and there's something in his eyes. Warning. A dangerous look that shifts almost entirely once he notices Niles' look. He stands up abruptly, leaning over the desk. His eyes are alight with something, something almost vicious. Or, surely, it was concern?

"Oh, my god. This is serious--what happened, Niles?" His voice is soft, calming, but that unnerving stare is still there. "Are you okay?"

Niles flinches at the sudden movement, hard enough to shift his chair back slightly. He watches Gabe's face, something twisting deep in his gut. That look wasn't something he liked. He'd seen it before, and he was no more accustomed to it than the first time. In his more lucid moments, he started to wonder if Gabe somehow liked it when Niles was forced to suffer. But he always dismissed it. They just coped with the traumas of war differently, right?

Instead, Niles focused on the tone. That's what he needed to hear. The concern. That he'd lacked after that day. "Bandits attacked my roller a few days ago. They killed several of my men. I tried to take them down, but..." his hands, resting on the desk, curled into tight fists, his gazed fixed on them. "...I was out numbered. And they..." He took a slow breath, reminding himself that Gabe would understand that he wasn't weak. "...made me strip. Down to my boxers. Threw me face-first into the dirt and..." His lips twisted as he tried to swallow. He couldn't even say it, what that bandit had done to him.

"No..." Gabe shook his head, gaze still fixed straight at Niles. He leans a little further, looking as concerned as he can, and his lips part. "Niles, they did what?"

His heart was leaping in his throat. Excitement, or some odd sense of schadenfreude? His gaze flicks down to Niles' hands, reaching one out to gently run fingers over those white knuckles, soft and caring. Comforting. He grabs the other's tightly balled fists, touch velvet as he cups those hands in his. Covers them, like he's protecting him.

"What did they do?"

A tremor had started to take root in Niles' balled fists. But those hands on top of his, familiar and soft, seemed to ease it away. Niles took one slow breath, then another. He was weak for even allowing it to happen in the first place. He'd survived battles, he could take on three men with shotguns, couldn't he?

"He...urinated on me...called it a metaphor..." He closed his eyes, letting out an unsteady breath. He tried to focus on those hands over his, trying to let them comfort him.

"Shhh, shhh, shhhh." One hand moves away, and then the other, but that's because Gabriel is moving to the other's side, almost spinning, and he puts an arm around the other, exhaling.

"That's--wow. That's some messed up stuff," He confesses. Pauses for a moment before putting his other arm around the Mayor and kissing the top of his head. He pulls back so they're in a half-hug, hand rubbing up and down his arm. Soothing.

"How did you escape? What happened to them?"

Tension faded from Niles' almost immediately as he felt that arm around him. He leaned against Gabe slightly, feeling as though he might break down right there as relief flooded through him. Those lips against his hair. The arms around him. It's all he wanted. He twisted in his chair, his arm moving around Gabe's waist, not wanting to pull his head from that familiar chest.

"They got what they wanted," he said, his voice softer and less tense. "There was an argument and..." he just shook his head. "By the time I looked up, they were gone."

"They're gone." Gabe's eyes snap open, that strange look back. That glare. He shakes his head, just a tad, and leans back to look straight at Niles. His arms are still around him, comforting, protecting, but the look is a strange mix of confusion and cautioness.

"What do you mean, 'they were gone'? You haven't tracked them down yet? Haven't made them responsible?! Niles!" As if this was his fault. The confusion turns into rage: anger, that someone would hurt Niles.

"After all you've been through," He states, sharp, hissing, almost snake like, diction crisp and clear. And, all at once, he's detached himself from Niles. Is zipping up his hoodie and grabbing his messenger back, as if in a hurry to go. Rage still on his face.

"I'll be right back." He was going to find them, no doubt. Kill them.

Niles looked up at Gabe, an arm still around his waist, just wanting that comfort to stay. But that look in the other's face cuts it far too short. And suddenly he finds it difficult to find his voice again. That hiss, that rage. He tried to grab Gabe before he could get too far away, but he was too slow. And Niles was left feeling cold and hollow.

Panic. The tiniest shard of memory lodging in his conscious mind like a piece of glass. Brittle and cutting, but indistinct. Something about Gabe charging off triggered it, and he just knew he couldn't let his friend leave.

"Stop," he called out, rising to his feet. "Nolan's already on it. As are several of my men. I sent them to find them as soon as I got back. There's only so many places for bandits to hide. Please, just...stay here. With me." He reached an unsteady, leather-covered hand out to the young man.

"They did this to you!" Gabe had pivoted and turned in an instant, taking a few steps towards Niles, looking as if, for a moment, he was going to take his aggression out on Niles instead of the men.

"The only reason Nolan's even law keeper is because he's fucking Amanda. We both know it!" Hands clamp down on the other's shoulders, squeezing. Reassuring. His gaze softens, licking his lips. Eager or apologetic, it's hard to tell. "He's going to take pity on them and release them. If you don't do something, they're going to walk. Get a slap on the wrist for reminding you of all of the things that happened, how piss got into all that glass in your hand and left it infected. You don't need that. We need to do something, Niles."

Niles settled his hands on Gabe's arms, trying to calm him, trying to some how interrupt the tired. But no one could cow him faster than Gabe. That look, those words. He always knew how to halt Niles in his tracks. And then there was that mention of the glass and he tensed so hard his fingers dug into Gabe's forearms.

"Please don't do this," he said, the panic evident in his voice. Frantically, he tried to remember his own plans. There'd been a plan, even as he furiously ordered Nolan to find the men with such little to go on. "Nolan has to keep them long enough to process them," he explained, his words quicker than he would have liked. "That's when we'll have them. Make Nolan do the leg work, and he'll deliver them to us. Just please, stay here." He searched Gabe's face, pleadingly. Just let him be content for a few minutes.

"I don't like seeing you like this," Gabe said, talking softly as if answering the other's questions despite him not asking any. He slides his arms up and out of the other's iron grip, only to rub at his arms, back to comforting him. There's still a bit of anger in his face, but it's melted to determination. As if Niles said the right thing.

"I just want to help you. Like you helped me, remember?" That dulcet, soft tone. Soothing. Gentle. "I want to see you safe. Promise me you'll get the guys that did this to you?"

Niles calmed a little when Gabe seemed to let go of his anger. And the words helped. He was able to let go of that panic, and to stop trying to chase that memory that seemed to elude him. Maybe it was just a bad dream he'd had that he couldn't place. He'd certainly had plenty of those in the past.

"I promise," he said, his voice far less tense now. He brought his hand up to rest it against Gabe's cheek, leather pressing to that familiar face. "You do help me, just by being here. Knowing that no matter what you'll be sa--" He cut off. There it was again. That terrible sense of a memory he couldn't place. His hand flinched back from Gabe's face, just slightly, before he slowly pulled it back. "...be safe..." he finished, distracted.

"Just don't go after them," he snapped, suddenly stern. He pulled away to return to his desk.

"Fine. Jesus," His eye roll is apparent, pointed, and he leans into the touch. He's loved. Acknowledged, admired. He's here. Here, in front of Niles. Standing there, watching him.

Protecting him, Gabe was sure. Being there for him. The word slip up is caught, as is the hesitation. Something happening, a slip. Niles learning something. Or remembering, perhaps?

Gabe's mouth presses into a thin line, and watches as the other goes back to his desk. Gabe takes a few steps back, too, looking at the other. Staring at the other. A few steps to the right, a few steps to the left, watching him in his chair with silence, eyes locked onto his figure.

He can still feed off of this. He can still live.

"Niles?" He asks. Calm and innocent sounding--like when he was scared at night, dreaming about his family being attacked while he was away. "Do you ever think about what you'd do to them? Not the raiders, the ones... From before."

Niles settled back into his chair, taking far too much time to smooth out his suit coat. To check the straps around his hands. To get everything just so. He was uncomfortable. Nervous. Generally uneasy from something he couldn't quite place.

Then came that tone. It reminded him of the night after. When Gabe tried to talk to him in the dark. Everyone was so scared, and he couldn't even see his friend. He was too afraid to respond. Why didn't they hear it? Why hadn't anyone else stirred?

"I try to not think on it," he said, cutting off his own questions as much as Gabe's question. "Most of them were killed by the soliders who came. The rest likely died soon after." It was a tone that usually allowed no argument.

"And you're okay with it." There's something dripping from Gabe's words: malcontent. He's glaring, but not at Niles, at something on the wall as he takes a few steps away. Moves back to the other side of the desk but doesn't sit in the chair, instead sits on the desk.

He's not mad, Niles. He's disappointed.

His hands run down his face, as if trying to think of another option. As if he's the huffy teenager trying to explain to a younger Niles why Football should just be called Soccer because Football was a better sport anyway, and Connor likes it, so Niles should just stop asking questions and go watch them or something.

"I think you know what you'd do," He suggests. "I think you know what to do once Nolan cuts those guys free, too."

"I try to not think about it," Niles insisted, his words sharp. He didn't like it when Gabe got like this. It was comforting to know someone understood, but why couldn't he just leave it alone? Why couldn't he see it was the last thing Niles wanted to be thinking about right now? The more it came up, the more he wanted it to just all go away.

"And yes, I DO know," he insisted. He only had a vague plan that involved broken bones, but that's all he needed. "But what I don't know is how I'm going to get Amanda unconscious so Yewll can get that blasted EGO into her."

His tone was sharp and clipped. He didn't want to discuss the nightmare, he wanted to focus on the present. He didn't care what it was called. He had classes to study for and he'd rather be doing that than sitting in the hot sun while the two American boys he so badly wanted tackled each other on the grass.

"Amanda." So much emotion in one word: anger, mostly. A different type of anger, not the type he had with the raiders, but the kind that's blue-white. Worry. Resentment.

Fear.

"Why do you want to?" He asks, voice filled with contempt and cautiousness. A worry, almost. "You know whatever you do she's going to just fuck the lawmaker."

He'd been sitting on the desk, but, after rolling his shoulders, Gabe turns on the table and winds up sitting on it completely, facing Niles, Converse shoes on either side of the chair's arms. Looking down at him, making it almost like a plea.

"You've tried everything. Give it up, there's no way she'll go for you."

"If I do this," Niles explained, settling his hands on Gabe's thighs, "It'll be something Nolan could never do. I'll return her sister to her. Once I do that, Nolan will be nothing but a distant memory."

Why couldn't Gabe understand how big this was? It wasn't about just claiming the former mayor for himself anymore. She understood him. In a way that was different than Gabe. She wasn't there, and yet she still accepted him for who and what he was. The may disagree but she'd never judge him. And her touch was so soft, so gentle.

Gabe didn't know. Niles hadn't told him that part, yet. He feared saying it, feared another wave of that terrifying anger. If Gabe knew...what would he do?

"She's...she's our last link to Connor," he admitted. "They were engaged. With him god, we...we could almost be like we were."

No.

No, Gabe was slipping. Niles was falling and Gabe was supposed to catch him, not mess up the grip. There wasn't supposed to BE an Amanda.

It was them. It was just them, only them, and Gabe finds himself shaking. Not with anger, but with fear. He knows Niles can feel him, trembling. Afraid. Like he'd been looking into the eyes of the Votan, the sleek, reptilian Indogene before everything...

And it's gone. Just like that, Gabe knits himself together. Finds another skin.

"Niles," He speaks, and there's just a speck of firmness. Of desperation, trying to seep into the Mayor's pores. Gabriel is nourishing himself on Niles' indecisiveness, growing stronger with each unsure look. He looks down at the older man, and, with one hand, grabs Niles by the chin to make sure the other was staring at him.

"I am your last link with Connor. Not Amanda. Me. And I don't want to lose you. I can't. If I lost you, I.. I don't know what I'd do."

A deep breath.

"I don't trust her."

Edited 2015-06-15 11:39 (UTC)

Forced to look up at Gabe, Niles couldn't hide what washed over him. He felt betrayed. Wounded. Afraid. Desperate. Why couldn't he have them both? As a student, it seemed an impossible concept. How could he ever have two when he wanted them both the same? But now it was different. He wanted them in different ways. Gabe, his ever-present friend. Amanda, so caring and gentle. He swore he could see a future where having them both was possible.

"Don't say that," he pleaded, his hands moving up to Gabe's waist. "You just don't know her. She didn't trust us, either. When we first arrived she hated us. Despised everything we stood for. But that's changed. Just talk to her and you'll see."

No one else could make him sound so very weak. Pathetic and begging. But there was no one else quite like his friend.

He will. He'll say it as much as he can, to twist the knife. Get under Niles' fingernails, scratch at his brain. Pick, and pick, and pick away at his very soul, and even then Gabe will be yearning for more and longing for that pained look in Niles' eyes. He can't feed off of those fears, can't burn Niles' wings if someone's in the way.

Gabe is immediate, Gabe is gratification now, of suffering of pain of pleasure of comfort, and those hands on his hips remind both him and Niles, he thinks, that Gabe is here. Forever.

Or does it?

"You're in love with her," He says softly. Draws his hands away, shaking his head. A discovery, as if Gabe had never thought of it before instead of spending all of time consumed by it. "I leave for a few days and--and you've fallen in love with someone?"

And he's sitting up, now, pushing off of Niles. Crossing his arms like it's suddenly too cold in the room, moving over to a window. Less fire, more sadness. Digging and chipping away at Niles' guilt with resentment. "We understand each other. We--we have a bond."

Edited 2015-06-15 20:38 (UTC)

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