#dbhequillibrium

[dbhilluminate]

DBHI: Equilibrium, ch. 13 - “Periapsis” (pt. 5)

Characters: Noah / “Erwin Yvonne”, Gabriel / “Vincent Sharp”, Director Thomas Falken, Hannah Kamski (mentions of Gavin Reed, Malachi, Diego Serrano, Priya Davies / “Pestilence”, Gideon, Kate, Waylon) Word Count: 10,131

After a long two hours, Noah and Gabriel finally get to sit and discuss the previously unaddressed change in the nature of their relationship.

***For a glossary of world-building terms relating to this series and chapter, click here.

(Chapter Art by ozaya, Co-authored by @grayorca15​)

• Chapter Index • Characters • Glossary •

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December 23rd, 2041 - 11:10 PM

This must have been what the dreaded time-out felt like to five-year-old humans. The concept was undeniably similar. The first ten minutes of ‘detention’ was spent staring at the mess around the room as the FBI began sectioning off evidence of the crime scene- from the body of the security guard and the other victims throughout the room to the bodies of the deactivated Inquisitors, and the body of Priya 2.0, which lay no more than five feet away from him. The former vessel stared straight up at the ceiling in a pool of thirium, a stiletto heel lodged into their temple. It was a gruesome sight that left Noah shuddering and scooting in the opposite direction as far away as he could get, but he only vaguely remembered what had happened leading up to their demise.

Aside from being locked out of his motor functions and sequestered to the island of his mind palace, all he could recall were the feelings of sheer helplessness, tension, and conflicting impulses of ‘yes, let me die’ and ‘but not like this’ singing harmonies to his mania. Control over his body slowly came back to him after several minutes of paralyzed terror, but having his cheek grazed by a stiletto projectile and watching Priya get skewered by the footwear snapped him right back to full awareness, just a split-second before the cavalry stormed the place. What had happened next was just as hazy- he phased from one loss of control straight into the next as his rusty battle program shook the dust off and unwittingly threw him into the fray. There was hardly enough time to process before he -watching from behind his own eyes as his own programming puppetted him- tore through the first inquisitor he got his hands on and tossed them into the nearest serving table, with enough force to also ragdoll it over the three behind it. But before he could turn his focus onto the next target, Gabe’s arm whipped across his neck and collar like a steel bar and clothed-lined him with the intent to stop him, but unfortunately, all it did was piss him off.

The ensuing fight was brief, but scrappy- the struggle persisted for several minutes in spite of Gabriel’s repeated orders for him to ‘Stand down’, and only ended when Vincent -or rather, Gabriel- took a backhanded elbow to the nose while trying to non-violently restrain him. Noah regained control the moment his sensors alerted him to a violation of the ‘friendly fire’ protocol, and his blue eyes scanned the aftermath of his violent tantrum with frantic sweeps. Paramedics rushed about the room tending to the wounded, and a few staggered gunshots and startled yells wound the excitement down to a tolerable lull, while the FBI rounded up the last of the combatants from across the ransacked hall. His gaze came to a fixated stop on Vincent when he finally noticed the thirium dripping from Gabriel’s nose onto the floor in large drops, making it painfully obvious that he wasn’t human.

He didn’t think much further than that- instead of coming up with a witty quip to hide behind Noah panicked, grabbed a handful of cocktail napkins from a nearby table, and tried blotting away as much of the blue blood as he could while apologizing profusely. In the same sweeping movement, Gabe turned and positioned himself behind the nearest cocktail table with his back to the Christmas tree to evade the hidden cameras, and tried to clamp off the bleeding with one hand. But before Noah could find out if he was alright, a gnarled hand grabbed his shoulder and tore him away from the bleeding android without warning. He didn’t need to turn around to know the owner of said hand was Director Falken himself. Instead of resisting, he let the man drag him back until his heels knocked the edge of the stage, kicked him off balance, and dropped him down onto his ass with one final-sounding thump.

“Stay there, don’t move.” “But-” Falken pushed him back down with a rough shove as he tried to stand up, then leaned down into his personal space and growled in his face. “Try it again, Maitkin, an’you’ll find yourself limpin’ outta here with a bullet in the leg, understand me…?” An involuntary, embarrassed whine of his systems winding down answered for him, followed by a tentative, slightly-horrified smile of compliance. “Yes, sir.” He wholly intended to follow Falken’s order to not move, considering the impressive number of bodies littering the place that once again, the RK9 was somewhat-responsible for putting there.

It had been a while since that brief exchange, and twenty minutes of ruminating hadn’t helped to quell the anxiousness as much as he’d hoped. Without the presence of his fidget aid -a uniquely weighted chess piece, a gift from Kate- he’d settled for unfolding and folding the Ray-Bans from his coat’s pocket while he watched emergency services and local law enforcement trickle in from the main entrance. One nervous glance paid to the top of the Christmas tree assured him that tinsel angel had survived unscathed at the very least. If one beautiful thing hadn’t been ruined that night, then perhaps the rest could still be salvaged. Though, not likely. 

Just as he finished re-analyzing the last ten minutes of the event for the fourth time, a firm squeeze of his shoulder delivered a familiar prickle of data he’d both long waited and feared the arrival of. Noah turned his eyes up shamefully to meet Gabriel’s, expecting a reprimand, but blinked in surprise as the man knelt to slip an arm around his waist and lift him off the stage with a quiet ‘Come on… let’s get you out of here’ whispered into his ear. ‘Erwin’s’ eyelids gave a gratuitous flutter as Vincent’s decisive, yet gentle hand slipped into his between them and guided Noah’s hand through the crook of his tucked arm. One gloved hand settled on top of his to better lead ‘Yvonne’ out of the room as any proper gentleman would, brown eyes focused intently on his company to keep his attention off the horror as they crossed the room. Had it not been for the massacre spoiling the mood from out the corner of his eyes and the back of his mind, Noah may have been able to enjoy the moment properly, but there was too much yet to consider.

The walk went on for longer than he expected. Instead of stopping at the staircase in the courtyard of the Mellon, Gabriel led them further back into the property, past the green rooms where the FBI had set up their surveillance equipment, and stopped at a small flight of stairs adjoining the West Wing of the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building to the Auditorium. The municipal building had been deserted for hours already, the business of the day had concluded no later than four PM that afternoon, in preparation for the charity event. It was dark and quiet on that end, out of the way and not easy to find, a good place for them to talk more privately: only the hollow clacking of Oxford heels, the occasional whistle of snowy wind whipping against the windows, and the soft, murmured echoes of their voices to keep them company.

The silence during the three-minute walk proved too much for the party-crasher. The very second they made it out of earshot of the FBI’s temporary headquarters, Noah gave his escort one pointed look, frowned and shook his head as he slipped out of his grasp. “Right… leave it to me to ruin a perfectly good face- and your fundraiser.” The self-deprecating jab earned him a glance, but no lecture. “They patched me up pretty quick... it’s not a big deal.” “Pft.” Noah scoffed, tossed a glance away from him, and stepped away from Gabe toward the staircase. “Sure, as if negotiating unforeseen hostage situations is something you do on the daily.” “It was one of the potential scenarios our predecessors were designed for,” Gabriel reminded as he slipped his hands into his pockets. “It’s nothing new.” “Yes, but how many of them were also given an economic nose job for their trouble?” he countered in sarcastic rhetoric as the mortification of his unconscious actions sank in. “I’m fine, Noah, really, don’t worry about it,” he reassured one last time. Gabriel tapped the toe of one foot to the ground and flattened his lips with a thoughtful pause. After what had just happened, a popped nose line should have been the least of his worries, and yet there he was fretting over it like it was the end of the world. He must have been worse off than he’d thought.

“Really, though… how are you holding up?” he asked in a soft tone as he lifted his eyes to meet his. “I mean- you didn’t... lose, anything... did you?” Noah exhaled in frustration, not all of it aimed at his counterpart, and shivered involuntarily with a sarcastic response, “Do a few of the wits I had left count?” “You know what I mean…” Gabriel leveled his gaze to him, crouched down to sit on the top step of the stairs, and gave him a half-lidded look. Their eyes met briefly but still managed to communicate what was on his mind. “Did Malachi hurt you...?” A hot-cold patch spread across Noah’s face to mimic the way human skin paled in response to a nervous system response to stress. “If you’re asking, did it hurt to hear all that...? Yes, it did.” He stopped short before a tirade could get the better of him and took in a deep, cleansing breath to resettle his racing mind, then stooped to sit down beside him. Gabe folded his hands, looked down into them, and sighed quietly, then lifted a hand to stroke the length of his spine from his lower back up to his neck and squeezed his shoulder. “I know... I’m sorry.” “But, it was no worse than what I tell myself in the mirror most mornings,” he continued and relaxed under his comforting touch. “I don’t know if the virus would have made things better, or at least more tolerable, but…” He stopped, only to shamefully glance sidelong at his rescuer. If not for him, he wouldn’t have been able to remain strong enough to fight off the impulse to simply give himself over to Malachi’s whims. “Despite… appearances I’m not keen to find out.”

A pained look struck Gabriel hard before he could successfully smother it into something less overtly panicked at the notion. “I wanted to intervene sooner,” he admitted, a fragment of the anxiety evaporating with it, “But-...” Gabriel’s stress readings spiked again for a moment as his gloved hand slipped off his shoulder to nervously brush back his hair and stroke across his brow with an angry sigh. It was a shitty situation all around. Noah wasn’t the only one who’d been replaying it on repeat trying to figure out what he could have done better. Even if he hadn’t had Gavin and Falken in his ear giving updates and orders the entire time, without a weapon, he wouldn’t have had a more direct way of handling the situation any other way than he had. But then again, if he hadn’t been following protocol from the get-go, he would have been carrying a loaded gun, and the hostage situation would have been over before it had even begun. He chuckled darkly with a twitchy, morbid grin in spite of himself and shook his head. “Do you have any idea how much I hate having to work with a handler…?”

Noah didn’t share the smile. He recognized the tone for what it was: begrudging, frustrated malcontent. That this was the way things were for a reason, and said reason wasn’t so much in a book somewhere as much as it was pulled out of Falken’s ass. They were, after all, the only two units of a posthumously-produced series of Androids, who were never issued a specific field. Only a very general definition of the words ‘law enforcement’ fit them. Finding anything more specific was undoubtedly trial and error, as had been the case with him and Archangel; ergo it wasn’t a big surprise to hear Gabe was finding the same difficulties settling in with the FBI. They both needed eyes on their work to make sure nothing went too far awry. It was only logical, but it didn’t mean they had to like the constant overview. “... Some. You forget I was AA once- hated every second of waiting on paperwork or phone calls.” “I didn’t forget. I was just under the impression you never really did what you were told,” Gabe teased with a smirk and gave him a ribbing nudge with his elbow. Noah returned it with a droll blink and frowned. “Not directly. There were roundabout ways which were more-” He stopped mid-thought and backed up a moment on what he’d actually said. “What? You’re not having fun anymore?” Gabe hesitated. A hand rubbed at the back of his neck in nervous habit as he shook his head. “I just hate playing the waiting game... sometimes I think it’d just be more effective if they let me loose to do things my way.” The playful smirk faded to cautiously glance at him out of the corners of his eyes. “Then I wouldn’t have to take so many unnecessary risks.”

Risks such as him, he might as well have said. Noah pondered that, just to distract himself from dwelling on how badly it could have ended. Being drunk and caught up in the fervor of the moment accounted for a lot of his reactions, but not all. His cover alias had become pretty well synchronized with his actual persona in the process, and the same went without saying for his company; even so, the more he thought about it now, the more pressing the need to know which was which became. And he had already had his fill of uncomfortable situations for one night without landing himself in another. It might have been harder to get the question out, had he not already made a fool of himself several times over that night. But still, he stuttered. “Th-then… was any of what you said to Serrano real?”

Gabriel froze and clenched his teeth. It was only a matter of time before they circled back to the subject they’d both been skirting all night, but he still wasn’t ready for it. Answering truthfully meant things would certainly change between them, but however quickly it happened was completely dependent on how receptive each of them was to that eventuality. His limbs suddenly felt heavy. In spite of the pounding in his ears and the screaming of processes telling him to avoid the question, he shut them out and prioritized a response, for both their sakes. The longer they waited to talk about this, the harder it would become. “... some of it…” he answered truthfully, without paying him so much as a sideways glance. He didn’t dare elaborate beyond that yet, not until he knew what he wanted to hear. To his credit, Noah didn’t lash out with the first negative thing he could infer from that. His brows knit and his gaze slid sideways, fingers tightening over his knees to abate some of the nervousness. “And you… can’t say which is which, or it’ll destroy your alias’ credibility?” Gabe ran a hand through his hair to stimulate the regrowth of his recognizable, slightly longer and darker curls, took off his glasses and slipped them into his coat’s pocket, then rubbed at his eyes until the electric blue coloring brightened the previously-brown irises. However ill-at-ease he felt starting this conversation, it couldn’t be said that he wasn’t trying. “It’s just you and me right now,” he assured as he brushed a hand over his jaw and chin to clear away the beard, then leaned over his knees and finally looked over at him with the familiar face he knew so well. “Ask me anything.”

The first time seeing him since the Raids, and not Vincent in his place, was a little more jarring than Noah counted on. He stopped fiddling with the glasses and closed them with an audible click, tucked his arms close to his sides and drew his knees together as if to suddenly look smaller, or somehow more put-together. “Did you at least learn what you needed to?” “Yes.” Gabe tilted his head in response, folded his hands loosely in the air in front of him, and looked over at him evenly. “Serrano isn’t funding the Inquisition, which… isn’t what we expected to hear, but it’s progress,” he affirmed with a thoughtful nod. “Is that all you wanted to know...?” Noah tsked and raised an eyebrow in retaliation, an allusion to the can of worms this line of questioning would eventually open. Always with the pressing to make sure it was closer to the whole truth and not only the pretty highlights. “Inviting me to be my old nosy, bitchy self can’t happen without strings attached.” He pocketed the sunglasses and halfheartedly wiped at half-dried blue blood on his lapel with a frustrated sigh. If deflection were an Olympic sport, he would have quite the collection of medals by now. “That’s the cynicism talking- it wants to know why you didn’t just let Malachi throw the switch.”

Gabe paused for almost half a minute and furrowed his brows, then looked down at his hands and took in a steadying breath. There was no other way to say it, plain and simple. “... because you’re my friend, Noah... and I didn’t like how it made me feel to imagine a world without you in it.” He hesitated to look his way, to let it sink in first. It was as easy a conclusion to come to as it was hard to admit. With how things stood now, Gabriel hardly remembered why he had ever been so hard on him in the beginning. Maybe it was, in part, the way Noah carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, for crimes that weren’t even his fault. No one loved a martyr, but he deeply respected anyone self-aware enough to try and evaluate where they’d gone wrong even if Noah was far too hard on himself most days for his liking. Such as it was, the obvious question still lingered in the back of his mind. “… do you really want to die?”

It’s something of an age-old dilemma in his case, but to hear Gabe ask it isn’t any more pleasant than Hannah throwing it at him. Noah tried to evade the worst of the new spike in distress with a joke. “No, not like that. Getting killed over a little impromptu karaoke wouldn’t look amazing in the obituaries,” he admitted, hands in his lap. Despite the glibness, the guilt had started to creep up again. “If I hadn’t been singing, if I had listened when you said stop, we wouldn’t be discussing it here, like- this. Probably.” “You’re right, we wouldn’t,” he agreed, not looking or sounding upset, but eyes still focused on his hands. The look on his face may have read as neutral, but a very faint blush in his cheeks and a slight flicker of his heartbeat gave him away. Score one, Noah. ‘Erwin’ forced half an abashed grin, trying not to give purchase to the doubts and insecurities piling up to the point he couldn’t avoid dwelling on them. Whatever titillating reaction his words got was worth another admission in reward. “It was- kind of fun while it lasted, though. Almost like- nothing was different.”

The frantic tone of the evening transposed over the serenade hadn’t left him with much of an opportunity to process whether or not he’d enjoyed the performance. But one thing was for sure: he couldn’t get his choice of song off his mind. Of all the Christmas songs he could have chosen, of course he had picked the one that had the most melodramatic message available. That was just his style. But between the dedication of the song and their conversation from before, he’d been left thinking the lyrics were much more carefully chosen than he’d first thought. After a full minute of silence, Gabriel dared brave the comfort of the moment to ask a question he knew without a doubt would have an overly-complicated answer. “Why that song?” he began uncertainly, at almost a whisper.

Called out, the slimmer RK9 froze. His fidgeting hands stilled and the brittle grin collapsed into an uncertain frown. Like a focusing camera lens, his pupils flared and contracted, LED spinning yellow and remaining said color for several seconds. At least his first impulse wasn’t to try and deny it, but he still wanted a real answer. “Why did you pick that song, specifically?” Gabe tried again after he’d cleared his throat, louder than before. “Yvonne thought it appropriate,” he deflected on impulse, “Because your arrangement could only have been better off for-...” Noah stopped before he could finish the lie. It wouldn’t have done him any favors anyway. The choice was blatantly transparent, even if it still somehow required an explanation. Hands curled over each other in his lap, and he hung his head defeatedly. “... and…  because it was true, okay? Where were we last year, this same time?”

Gabe’s cheeks flushed yet another shade redder as he thought back to the year before when they’d barely known each other for longer than a week. Not only had Noah showered him in all manner of unnecessary gifts (which made him extremely uncomfortable to accept), but it had been the first time he’d asked for a kiss under the mistletoe. Freshly deviated and not at all familiar with Christmas traditions, much less acquainted with his feelings, he’d popped him across the jaw with a strong right uppercut the moment Noah got too close for comfort. In hindsight, he felt bad for how severely he’d overreacted, but what was done was done, and the circumstances had changed. All he could do now was make up for acting like an inconsiderate ass. Starting with giving him what he needed to hear before he could get up and walk away. “So, then... that’s really how you feel...?” he asked one more time, just for clarification. “Every word of that was… genuine?” “Said as if I wasn’t being genuine the whole time...” Noah muttered without meeting his eyes, arms crossed as if he were suddenly chilled. The hot-cold flush was back, and this time it wasn’t momentary. It spread from his cheeks back down the sides of his neck, intensifying and making him feel as if his fuel lines had shrunk down to half their diameter. He forced himself to say more to distract from how his processors spun a few cycles too slow. “‘Honest’ is what you had trouble with hearing before.”

Having said his piece, he tried to stand up and leave, only for Gabe to sharply reach out, grab his arm and pull him back down. He might have protested if not for the pleading expression of “No, we need to talk about this”. This wasn’t Vincent Sharp. Gabriel needed to talk about it, to process it, and he needed to be able to see it in his eyes and on his face so he could do that. “Please… I’m listening now.” Being expected to sit there and explain himself once and for all didn’t immediately gel with his mindset of ‘write the night off as the biggest near-miss he’s had since the press conference’. By now, he hardly remembered the intent with which he’d crashed the charity event in the first place; but one thing held firm to for the last few hours was wanting to talk to Gabe candidly, without anyone else eavesdropping. No aliases or cover stories or ulterior motives. The question was a very simple yes or no, but being who he is, the urge to over-explain himself won out.

“Yes, it was, and is, how I really feel,” Noah replied in a gentler, reluctant tone and paused long enough to take in a deep breath as an unreadable expression crossed Gabe’s face, somewhere between overwhelmed and touched. “I may be the most infamous idiot in Zion’s immediate history, but that’s only rivaled by how unfairly they revile you for what happened in Boston. They don’t get it. They don’t know what it is to be us… ” His voice trailed off and Noah caught himself almost tripping over the next words, unsure if he should admit to his intentions, except for the insisting look in Gabriel’s transfixed gaze. He really was listening, with bated breath. “I know my timing is atrocious, but I wondered... if you’d ever thought that we could be something besides a mutual pair of freaks, then... then maybe we’d...” He stuttered to a stop, reached to stroke the tension out of his throat and corrected himself. “You’d see that neither of us is totally alone, and we could be something- besides that, more than that... something they can’t say we aren’t.”

The silence from his companion both was and wasn’t helping. On the one hand, if Noah pretended he was talking to a brick wall (which was a fair comparison, some days), he could get out everything he wanted to say without interruption; on the other, he would have liked to know what was going through Gabriel’s head aside from having to watch his brow slowly harden the more he spoke. Folded hands didn’t offer much more insight beyond careful consideration either. He swallowed one more throat-clenching choke so he could finish the rest of his thought. “You once said you were tired of all the expectations others had, that they couldn’t know what was best for you because they hadn’t been through what you had. I don’t know if you’re still that guy, after all that’s happened, but... at the least, what would you say to a reset between us?”

Noah braved the twenty seconds of silence that followed the question with as much courage as he could summon, but caved to the desperate need to know and turned his head to find him doing the same. Gabe stared back out the corners of his eyes, then shook his head softly, slipped the glove off of the hand between them, and slowly reached over to thread his fingers with his. The gentle input of contact between bare receptors illuminated the panels of their palms without deactivating the projection. That he would be the first to initiate contact between them was already a huge win, but he still blushed when he took it a step further and pulled their hands into his lap, turned Noah’s hand over and gently rubbed it between both of his with a squint. This was a rare mood indeed. “A reset implies forgetting about everything that’s happened,” he stated evenly before looking up to meet his gaze. “And I don’t want that. I’d rather just… understand where we’re at, right now, and go from there.”

It was nice while it lasted, anyway. However poignant the gesture and physical contact were, his dizzying mood shifts weren’t about to let him settle for being ‘pet’ into a calm state just yet. The peacock’s feathers were still too mussed and ruffled. “Oh, that’s much easier to summarize: we’re a bloody mess!” Noah bristled and jerked his hand back, to Gabriel’s surprise. “Why would you want to start from there? I didn’t mean to say ‘nothing ever happened’. Would I be sporting this ridiculously moody haircut if it hadn’t?” Gabe’s lip twitched and his expression nearly curdled, but he steadied himself, took a breath and managed to remain calm. Noah was just feeling raw and exposed, reacting in the same way he once had when he felt vulnerable early on. Unlike him, however, if a little pressure were applied in just the right way, that rough exterior would crack like a walnut. “Are you done?” he asked expectantly with a pop of his brows at him for emphasis.

Bitchy mode instantly deactivated. Noah sighed and hung his head. It had proven to be an upsetting night, but it was no one’s fault besides his own. Gabe didn’t have to be there -humoring him, listening to what he had to say- and it would have taken more energy to remain irritated than he even had left in reserve. And the fact that he was able to show this level of patience spoke volumes to just what he was feeling and what he was about to say. Somehow he knew it was something he wanted to hear. A faint blush surfaced in his cheeks, and he gave a submissive nod. “Because it’s you, yes, sir... for now.”

The tension drained from his expression and shoulders, the white-knuckled grip over his fist relaxed. Gabriel closed his eyes and gave himself a moment to collect his thoughts, ducked his head then opened his eyes to stare at the ground between his feet. “I know I was an asshole. You have every right to hold that against me if you want to,” he started with unwavering conviction. The old Gabriel would have sooner lashed out to cover up his mistakes than admit his wrongdoings. “But I’ve also spent a year unwinding the knots that had me so twisted around that I didn’t want to involve anyone in my life.” He paused just long enough to glance over at him and make sure he was listening. Noah sat silent and still, like a child being lectured. After a stint in time out it was practically to be expected. “You met me at my lowest point, back when I didn’t know how to be a friend, much less a lover…” The revelation of why he had to make that distinction made him shiver, and he chuckled uncomfortably. This wasn’t a conversation he ever imagined having with him in the past, much less in the future. “You know how bad shit was with Em in the beginning...? Because I didn’t understand what a relationship was supposed to be… ?” He paused again and lifted his brows even higher. “I had some idea, thanks to gossip…” Noah replied, though not to interrupt. “And- other hints I’m sure you’d rather not be reminded of.” Never let it be said Emilya Grantley was always as prim and proper as she made herself out to appear. “You might not have fully understood at the time, but if you were anything like me, I thought you’d pick it up fast enough.” “You expected too much of me, Noah, way too soon,” he corrected with a tired sigh. “I was emotionally stunted - I didn’t know any feelings aside from ‘angry’, ‘jealous’, and ‘not’... so no, I didn’t pick it up as quickly as you did. And that’s why I didn’t get the message, until-” he stuttered to a halt, grit his teeth, and looked away in shame before he finished the thought. “Until now. So don’t-...”

Gabriel didn’t get much further into his train of thought before he had to stop again. Getting all choked up over a little unfamiliar emotion wasn’t really his style, but it had been a while since he had felt that uncertain about anything. “Don’t hold it against me for being so goddamn slow… I’m trying, alright?” He lifted his gaze and stared deep into Noah’s eyes for nearly half a minute, desperate for him to understand, to not reject him now like he had done so many times before without even knowing. He’d lost count of how many times his blushing subroutine had engaged that night, but every time it did he felt himself die a little inside. It wasn’t like it was a lie- he’d offered more in the last five minutes of conversation than he’d ever been willing to expose about himself to him. A sigh escaped him as he looked down and away, and pinched his fingers over the bridge of his nose, praying for patience. “I wouldn’t have bothered trying if you weren’t important to me...”

Getting Gabe to admit their rapport was any kind of significant was a victory in itself, yet at the same time, even if it was what Noah wanted, his habit of second-guessing kicked in but a moment later. The pouting look dropped from his face, replaced by bemused neutrality. Suddenly he was looking for holes in the argument to make sure it wasn’t a fabricated confession, without coming right out and asking. It wasn’t that he doubted Gabe’s integrity or that he didn’t believe he meant what he was saying, but he did doubt the context that had endeared him to Gabe. Noah tried to keep the feelings of blame and self-ridicule abated as they banged on the doors, wanting to be let in, and cast them off for a few seconds longer with a forced sigh and shook his head. “Maybe I did screw up that much. The approach was all wrong, but you’ve got the message now, so... better late than never.” “It’s not what I expected to hear,” he agreed in a neutral tone. “I can’t say with certainty that the result would have been any different.”

It would have been better if he could, but no answer worth knowing was ever given easy. That said, if it wasn’t the answer Noah would most want to hear he should have better braced himself for disappointment. “But if it’s not what you want, the understanding between us, I’ll... I can accept that.” A bit of a flustered response animated Gabe’s otherwise brooding expression. “That’s not what I said,” he corrected before he could get too off course. He hadn’t had enough time yet to come to that decision, he’d only really been processing the possibility for an hour at most. As always, Noah ventured on with the worst-case scenario in mind. The smile he donned bordered on self-loathing. “You have a life, one that isn’t shaping up half bad, and here I am just...” He trailed off and shook his head again, dragged a hand over his face as if to brush off fatigue born of so many discordant thoughts. “I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. With you, or Hannah, or Zion or… anything. The people who got killed tonight didn’t count on being caught in the crossfire. If I had only stopped singing when you asked...”

Gabe sighed, quiet and jagged, and moved one nervous hand over his chin. “I don’t know what to say…” he started, fingers drumming absently over their new perch. “It’s not like I’ve had time to analyze how all this makes me feel. All I really know is…” His voice trailed off, he dragged the tips of his fingers over his lips in pensive focus, then flattened a palm over them as he stared into the space in front of them. The other hand, dangled over his thigh between his legs, trembled in quiet confession; he hadn’t been that terrified since the Red Raids, a few months before, when he thought he was going to lose Emilya to a gang of Bloodhounds. “... I thought I was gonna lose you to him... and I was really, really scared.” “You sounded it, from where I was,” Noah commented in an attempt to keep his tone flat and free of inflection, positive or negative. Neither had ever earned him points when it came to debating with Gabe anyway, as far as he remembered.

But something else in his expression caught his immediate attention. Noah paused and raised an eyebrow at the very slight tells of distress that he couldn’t see from within the garden, tells that weren’t so easy to fake. “Why wouldn’t you want me to die? Wouldn’t it just make your life easier?” The answer came to Gabe quicker than before, after an hour of fight or flight contemplation, but he still took the time to pause and look him in the eye as he gave him his answer. “I already answered that,” he replied solemnly, “Because if you died, I would feel alone.” He had said as much before, he’d just phrased it differently.

‘Didn’t want to imagine a world without you in it’.

Noah averted his eyes sharply as the pang of simultaneous longing and denial hit him. At the moment, he was at a loss for a good refute. “I don’t hate you,” Gabriel assured, “I never did- I just wanted you to be respectful of the boundaries I’d set.” A weak smile twitched at the corner of Noah’s lips. Lines in the sand always had been something he’d had trouble with. “So... I imagine singing a dedicated love song to you in front of a couple of hundred people rates pretty high on the list of ‘worst ways to violate your boundaries’?” “It’s somewhere in the middle... not the least invasive, not the most...” Gabe grinned sheepishly and looked away with a vaguely shy smile and a soft blush, but frowned at the second half of his thought as it came to him. “I didn’t hate it... the fact is, I might have enjoyed it if I didn’t have Gavin and Falken panicking in my ear the whole time.” “Squabbling like headless chickens, no doubt,” Noah remarked. The mental image brought a stronger smile to his face. “Might have, you say…? I’ll take that as a quasi compliment.” He managed a fleeting moment of wit akin to his former attitude, before he noticed the melancholic mood of his companion, and circled back on his own solemn observation. Whatever humor he’d scavenged for the moment drained from his delivery. “I meant what I said, but it still got people killed… and my whims aren’t worth more deaths on anyone’s head-”

Before he could start blaming himself properly, Gabriel cut him off with a heavy hand clapped over his shoulder. “Hey- you didn’t get anyone killed. Malachi did. Their deaths aren’t on you, much as you wanna take credit for them.” “Who else would if not for me, then?” he scoffed to cover up the fact that he had already tallied up a body count to add to his pre-existing lists. “Malachi doesn’t feel a smidge of remorse for it, so someone has to. As it stands, had I not been there distracting everyone as I did, more of them could have gotten out unscathed. That’s just basic math.” “You don’t know that for sure,” Gabe stated evenly, eyes fixed on his hand as he slipped an arm around his shoulders. “Don’t torture yourself like that.”

It sounded like an order, complete with a “don’t” prefix, but Noah’s impulsive need to sass stalled at the sensation of weight lying on his shoulders. He blinked and looked around, then back at Gabe. If the gesture was meant to comfort and mollify him, it had the exact opposite effect; but, rather than react with pithy retaliation, he swallowed anxiously. “I screwed up- people died, and I managed to scare you by putting myself in a situation where I could have been killed. A little torture is deserved, or at least a wrist slap, something.” Gabriel feigned a disappointed scowl. “Fine then, you want the truth? You shouldn’t have been here and you know it,” he scolded in a fatherly tone, just for impact; but after a few moments of letting him indulge in the reprimand, his expression softened and he reached for his hand again. “... but I’m glad you were.” Noah didn’t try to pull away again as his fingers curled over the top of his hand. The prior revulsion of being touched had since been ameliorated by the sincerity of his words. A nervous smile twitched at one corner of his mouth. “That's the first time I’ve heard you say that- or at least, it’s the first time you weren’t just humoring me from behind the persona of Vincent Sharp.” “I’m serious.”

The insistent look in his eyes was unwavering in its conviction. Clearly, he wasn’t lying about that either. “I only spoke to a few people all night before you arrived, none of whom were genial enough to make Serrano want to approach me. But then he saw us talking, and, well… it was enough to solidify my alias.” Noah gave a haughty snort. Lynchpin move that it was, he pitied whatever odds for success the FBI had to begin with. “If Mr. Sharp greeted said other guests with the same hospitality he showed Erwin, then it was no wonder you needed a little help.” Gabriel rolled his eyes and let the scoff slide with a quiet smirk. “Either way, he gave me his story- seems like he never was quite sure of androids who weren’t deviant, let alone us; but he’s not funding the Inquisition. He’s in favor of giving us the space to find our own way.” “And how exactly does that help your case against him?” “It adds one more missing piece to the puzzle,” Gabe explained. “He might not be the source, but he might be able to tell us who is if asked the right questions.” Said with as straight a face as ever, Noah couldn’t help the barest of smirks at the memory of a time when his counterpart couldn’t stand being pelted with questions, much less asking them. A lot could change in a year. “Yes, well… lucky for you, you’ve been getting better with how to put those.” “As for your performance…” His voice trailed off for a moment, fingers moved to lace with his and curl around his palm as he sighed defeatedly. “The Inquisition had disabled the fire alarm system by the time we knew they were here. There wouldn’t have been any way to evacuate the room short of shouting ‘FIRE’. The best thing we could have done was to keep the guests calm and complacent. You risked your life to take Malachi’s focus off the other hostages. Casualties were minimized, all I did was stand there and look pretty.” “And spear the bad guy in the head with a Prada heel…” Noah corrected with a faint blush. No amount of underselling one’s importance in a given debacle went unanswered with him. Sally O’Rourke was probably more than happy to see her wardrobe’s sacrifice go to good use. She’d had the look of someone who wouldn’t tolerate a second musical interruption as politely as the first. “Nice throw, but… I never want to see another high heel as long as I live.”

The shift in the topic didn’t derail the praise as he had hoped, merely tripped Gabe up long enough to force him to take a pause and grin. “Point is, you did good. Who knows how much better or worse it would have been without you there... and even if you did scare me, I was glad to have your support- professionally, and emotionally.” A few more innocent bystanders’ deaths on the tally sheet, yet still he squeaked by to edge his way into ‘good’ graces. Noah swallowed any urge to bring that back up, knowing it’d only muddy whatever compliment was woven in there. It didn’t feel deserved, from where he sat. “Even if I violated your personal space to do so?” Gabriel flushed a tint deeper than before as he pulled their hands back into his lap again and directed his focus ahead of him. “You showed a degree of respect you hadn’t in the past, so… it’s nothing I couldn’t handle.” “Respect wasn’t a factor back then…” Coming from either party. Noah glanced down at their hands, half expecting him to initiate a memory interface, though it didn’t come. That was apparently up to him to decide on. “Still isn’t, to a degree,” Gabriel huffed with a handsome grin and a soft chuckle. “But, I can live with it.” Indeed, worse things had happened. What was an impulsive, drunken-yet-affectionate serenade from an old friend, compared to an attempt at a stolen kiss from someone he’d only just met two weeks prior? “You mean I didn’t slay you with embarrassment? Oh dear, mission failed.” “No, you succeeded, but the world didn’t end, did it?”

Gabriel’s fingertips nervously fidgeted against his hand, and he swallowed to expand the passages of his tightly clenched throat. Anxiety had finally gotten the best of him. “I ah-...” He started, then stopped, sighed quietly and hung his head. “I’m sorry.” Noah’s ear twitched involuntarily and he made a quarter-turn effort to glance at him suspiciously out of the corners of his eyes. “... Pretty sure I heard that right.” “You heard me,” he mumbled with a playful nudge, without looking up. Maybe, but it didn’t hurt to double-check that it wasn’t some figment of addled imagination. “I’m sorry, too, for… complicating things.” It was as articulate of an apology as Noah could manage. He wasn’t thirsty for anything more than quiet understanding. The rapid-fire shots of rum had already been cause for enough drama without the Inquisition ruining the mood. “Don’t worry, Gabe, I won’t go a capella on you now.” “You didn’t complicate anything,” he chuckled with a shy smile. “If you hadn’t crashed the party and wrote yourself into my alias’ history, I might have failed my directive.”

The compliment helped, but any pride he might have felt was tempered by the knowledge people had still died that night. Tomorrow there would be press coverage of this running on no less than five major news networks, three local outlets, and dozens of online tabloids. He couldn’t allow himself any congratulations, regardless of whether or not the distraction he had brought to the table had somehow prevented more casualties from occurring, or if it helped Gabe accomplish his mission. If you say so, he conceded at last. Noah leaned down just enough to nuzzle his cheek against Gabe’s shoulder to avoid looking at him. He let the skin on his hand peel back and lay the sensors bare instead of weeping over these most recent regrets. Sometimes emulating a human show of sorrow was just too much effort to queue up, and there had been enough theatrics for one night already.

As if he’d been anticipating the gesture, Gabriel reciprocated in time out of respect and insisting curiosity- it wasn’t like Noah to simply go quiet, much less agree with him. The flow of data gave him just enough insight into what was on his mind without needing to prod. “None of what happened with Malachi was your fault,” he tried to reassure. “It’s... just how he operates. And if you think he’s bad, Gideon was worse.” There was an appropriate, if unwelcome comparison. The RK5 responsible for overthrowing Boston knew what worked for dramatic shock value, the same as his subordinate. To think their series were ever in any way related made Noah grimace in revulsion every time. “I can imagine. I saw that- weasel in passing while I was locked up. He knew what was wrong with me at a glance.” "If you had been under his control, you'd be even more mixed up than you are now.” Like Waylon and Malachi, both still very much affected by their time with him- one trying to de-program and be better, the other succumbing to the madness. “It's a good thing you never had to deal with him. Silver lining, I guess." “The lining is having people like Hannah and Kate, and... yourself around. If it weren’t for you-” Noah paused to rethink his choice of words, drew back, then amended mid-thought, “You all, tonight would probably have been the end of it.” “It’s alright… you know, you can thank me for saving your life,” Gabe teased with a charming, flirtatious smirk. “C’mon… you think I'd let you off that easy?”

Neither he nor anyone else typically saw fit to forgive his grievances in the past. Noah‘s eyebrows drew together in a set, disgruntled line at that thought. Even if things had changed, he was so used to beating himself up, basic manners still escaped his focus now and then. “If it made life simpler for you, yes.” Gabe snorted in disapproval. "Please… since when has simple ever been a staple of my life or yours?" “A guy can dream, can’t he?” However peeved he meant for that to sound, Noah conceded the argument with a sigh and a soft squeeze at his hand in reply. The glow of the panels went dark and the skin reformed. “In any case, thanks for the assistance.”

For just a moment, the flutter came back with the delivery of his ‘thanks’. However small or insignificant the gesture seemed, it was a bigger deal to him than expected. It was the first time he remembered Noah thanking him for anything. Gabe’s smile dropped, his pupils contracted, his eyelids faltered just barely, and whatever uncertainty he’d shaken off came back to plop itself right back on his chest like a lead weight.

His delayed response of “Don’t mention it…” carried a bemused air about it that was only shattered by Falken’s loud whistling from down the hall behind them. Both turned halfway to glimpse the man’s harried gesture to ‘Come here’, though only Gabe responded to it with an expectant groan and a sigh. “Uh oh, Coach looks pissed,” Noah sassed as his expression dropped. All of these interruptions were really starting to grate. So long as this one didn’t end with the promised bullet in a leg, he supposed it was tolerable. “I'll be right back, stay here.” “Actually I was-” The fleeting will to protest went as quickly as it came, the moment their eyes met. Apparently, their conversation wasn’t over, and he would only find trouble in disobeying. Besides, no talk they had ever had before this ever really ended on a sound conclusion. “... going to sit right here as ordered, yes, sir.”

Gabe stood and moved to leave, only to find himself stopped by a slight tugging at his arm. Brows twitched in confusion as he looked back, and found Noah's hand still latched onto his, curled tight, refusing to release. The gesture softened him, but only for a moment. As soon as Noah looked up and saw the stern squint asking him to let him go, he complied with a shy ‘Sorry’ in response. It didn’t feel right, just leaving him like that. It had been a stressful night, and he didn’t want to leave him there alone any more than Noah wanted to be left alone. After another moment of deliberation, he turned back and squatted before him on the stairs while fiddling with his corsage. Noah blinked, his LED went forebodingly red, and he sharply leaned back out of his personal space as he leaned in to affix it to his lapel, opposite of the Zion pin. “Wh-what are you-” “Relax.” Gabe cupped one enormous hand over his jaw and pressed his lips to his other cheek with a quick but firm kiss that Erwin nearly melted into. It wasn’t enough, and it wasn’t fair of him to peck and run, but being at such a loss for words (not quite trusting himself to not crumble and get overly emotional then and there), he could only gawk and pout to communicate his dismay. “Don’t go anywhere, and make sure you call Hannah and let her know you’re alright.” Noah only nodded, though he hesitated to let go of Gabe’s hand, even if the corsage pinned to his jacket was a welcome vote of reassurance. It was very wry of him to assume he was any kind of ‘alright’ after the night’s events, though it wasn’t the most demanding thing being asked of him. If he could suffer Malachi’s insults, Hannah’s fretting was nothing.

Any lingering feeling of warmth and familiarity left with Gabe as his hand slipped away at last, and he watched him walk back down the hall toward the Green Rooms in the direction of the Auditorium. The silence at that end of the building was both soothing and unsettling, because if there was one thing the night had taught him thus far, it was that trouble liked disrupting comfort. Noah only dallied on that thought for about thirty seconds more before he called Hannah as instructed. Even though they had parted on bad terms earlier in the day, her voice was another welcome reminder he was never as cut off as his broken subroutines told him he should be.

Noah! Thank RA9… I saw the news and I was so worried. For the time being, he muzzled the sick segment of code already guilt-tripping him for making her worry yet again. He wasn’t so naïve to think she would have never done the math, but here they were, no more than an hour since, and she had already put two and two together. No getting out of it now. I’m fine. You can thank Gabriel for that, he admitted without thinking. He handled the situation with a poise I wasn’t even aware he had. There was yet another dynamic that had ended up opposite of how it began. Every pain he had taken to try and distance himself for the sake of Hannah’s career in the public eye, had proven to have the exact opposite effect. After being in a relationship for two years during several crises, he should have known better; but at the same time, he couldn’t gauge her reactions any more than he could curb the sporadic desire to self-destruct whenever the chance presented itself. Since the virus, there had been so many conflicting prompts that chafed and caught and splintered whenever they brushed together. It had resulted in too much irrational, uncalled for behavior from him, and yet she still treated him as if he were the same dashing, untroubled person who’d whisked her off to Cincinnati on a whim.

Will you be coming home tonight…? The question was as innocent as it was foreboding and expected. From one day to the next he didn’t know whether to thank her or curse her for the continued attentions, if he should remain aloof or try to break the cycle of separation and grovel at her feet, begging for forgiveness. He only ever got the reaction he was after every time he railed at her for simply never telling him he was in the wrong, as he knew had to be, but he hated how that made her feel, and how it made him feel, having to resort to such browbeating. That evening’s distraction still pended in his deciding what he had been trying to accomplish, to that end. People might have thought him exhausting to keep up with, and they would be right, but not for the reasons they assumed. The FBI needs me here, for the time being, and you still have speeches to make. Try focusing on that, at least for Kamski’s sake.

He’d ended the call on that thought. Letting her protest would only prolong the agony; physically, he was fine, but no, he wouldn’t be back that evening, or maybe even the next day. Returning now would only mean another painful circulating argument, and that was one too many stressors on top of an already hectic evening. Sometimes it was better to leave her in the suspense of not knowing than to give her the truth. At least that way, what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her more than he already was. This had become their norm, since the outbreak- Noah disappearing for a few days at a time as he tried in vain to clear his head while obsessing over every hint of corrupted behavior surfacing in New Jericho, Hannah begging him to just come home and talk to her… but talking never helped solve the struggles he faced alone. And as much as she tried, Hannah -rA9 bless her- just couldn’t understand that unstoppable urge in his code to try to make that right again, using whatever means he had left. She didn’t know how every time he looked at her he was reminded of what she was in for, and how she deserved so much better than him. Maybe all Noah had been looking to accomplish by blowing up the FBI’s spot that evening was to escape from the disaster of his life at large, but Gabriel had one thing going for him that Hannah, or anybody else, didn’t. Amongst the hurricane of all the rest, he was the calm at the eye of the storm that made sense. How much simpler could it get?

Encroaching footsteps brought the present back into focus just in time to catch the tail end of Gabriel’s parting conversation with Falken, twenty minutes later. Go back to playing Vincent Sharp until further notice, report back only if you need a second opinion. Otherwise, we’ll be listening. Understood, Director. Noah eyed him as he stood there a few moments longer and put his persona back together. He didn’t think it possible for him to look even more handsome than he already did, but the brown eyes, bearded face, faded rosy brown undercut and fake prescription glasses was an incredibly good look for him. It certainly sold the idea he wasn’t the same surly, moody renegade nine who had laid a punch on him after being briefed on what the mistletoe tradition entailed, should one be dangled over his head (as Noah had demonstrated). As he had since explained, he wasn’t in the most receptive headspace last year, either. He hadn’t needed to wear one to the event. And seeing how he had voluntarily handed it over, there wasn’t much point in letting it’s company go to waste. To do otherwise came off more like a wasted gesture. And the thought it could have was offensive enough, he couldn’t let it go unresolved.

Yvonne wouldn’t turn down that dare. With his mind made up, he unclipped the corsage with a flick of his wrist, waited until the footsteps drew close enough, then turned back with one arm held poised over his head. It was no less dramatic and haughty than he had acted before now. “Aren’t you forgetting something…?” Gabe might have tried to find an excuse to say no, but seeing as he’d been told to resume his pretending, Vincent had no reason to deny him. Gabriel heaved a tired sigh from behind his alias and shook his head in disbelief. “C'est vrai, monsieur?” “C'est vrai, oui,” he mimicked with perfect inflection and a pop of his brows. “You couldn’t have possibly expected me to let you get away with that poor excuse for a mistletoe kiss, did you? Come on now, we’ve a tradition to uphold!”

It was the last part of his argument that finally stoked a reaction from him. Noah cringed and shut his eyes tight on instinct as Gabriel’s bear paw hands lunged down to lift him right up off the stairs. The last time he’d come at him in such a manner, he’d hit him hard enough to fracture the seam lines in his cheek. This time, however, he did nothing of the sort. Blue eyes blinked open in confusion as gentle hands clasped around his cheeks and jaw. They weren’t as spidery as Priya’s, but the pressure alone was instant cause for distress, until he felt his lips on the apple of his cheek. Noah stared wide-eyed and red-faced over his shoulder and let out a fluttery whine as he pushed into his touch, his free hand lifted to curl around his wrist. There was no immediate drawback that time, and Gabe exhaled jaggedly as he leaned into him, far enough to tap his forehead to Noah’s. For several long moments, he lingered like this, then pulled away just far enough to run the tip of his nose alongside his, from bridge to tip. “Je suis contente?” he whispered tenderly as Noah’s lips instinctively searched the air for his, a breath away. Dumbstruck and unsure of how to process the moment, Noah only managed an uncertain, lazy ‘uh-huh ’ as he ducked his head and buried it in Gabriel's shoulder, as his companion slipped his arms around him and stroked at the back of his head. It’s a welcome improvement over their first attempt at following the tradition, but he honestly never thought he’d get that far. It would do, for the time being.

“Come, monsieur, let us head back for the night… I sink we could both use ze rest after zis evening.”