And if you think you won't walk on coals, you will

[musicboxings]

Realistically, Gabe shouldn't be alive. Realistically, Gabe also shouldn't be able to do what he does, let alone do it so well. But he does, and he loves it. Revels in it. There's not much else he knows how to do now, save for this. Save for twisting. Because that's what he does, he thinks--he twists knives that other people have put in each other's backs. He gets off on it, too, or at the very least it fills the strange, empty hole in the entity that calls itself Gabe.

It's the accident--the stupid accelerator accident, and all of the sudden he got his mom to kill herself and he felt happy for the first time in a long time. He remembers smiling at her funeral, remembers whispering to Natalie that she'd probably be better doing the same thing just because he craved that same feeling he got. She told him he was a freak and he disappeared, panicked, because whatever he could do--and he still wasn't sure what it was--didn't work.

Gabe, eventually, figured it out. He could make people think he'd been there their entire lives with just a little verbal coaxing here and there, ruin their lives, feed off of it--that's what he called it--feeding--and then move on. He convinced waitresses and waiters at diners that they'd known him his whole life and he can get things on the house, convinced hotel after hotel that he was just always there for as long as they can remember. He got by. And then? Then Gabe got ambitious.

He remembers a field trip he only half paid attention to to the labs, and then realized that that was his big score--his big fix. The guy that was responsible for that entire accident had to be the most miserable son of a bitch there was. He marches up right to the only crew left, convinces them he was there since the beginning, and is officially part of the team. It works--he just feeds some lie about Harrison Well's wife knowing him and recommending him and he knows he's in for keeps.

Currently, he's got his legs kicked up on a table, everyone else gone home save for him and the professor--doctor--whatever he is. He's got a Nintendo in hand, half-heartedly playing, as he goes through the facts for a hundredth, millionth time: metahumans existed. He was a metahuman. And if he scores a friendship with another one--not Barry, it would fuck with his plan--he'd probably get the biggest meal of his life.

"Hey," he brings his feet down and spins on his chair towards the man in the wheelchair. "What are you doing here, anyway? Whatcha workin' on? Shouldn't you be home?"

Comments

[contranitoris]

Harrison doesn't so much as flinch when Gabe hits the glass. He just slowly leans back to stand up straight again, that sure smile planted firmly on his lips. He'd found the rawest possible nerve and wrenched it as hard as he could.

"Have a good night, Gabe." Was all he said as he turned on his heel to stroll out of the pipeline. He didn't even bother to use his speed. Just a slow, leisurely walk down the corridor as the main door fell shut behind him.

He wondered if that was what Gabe's need actually was. The way a depressed or suicidal person turned to self harm. Causing pain and forcing that rush of hormones helped stave off the bleak emotions for a little while until they started to consume the mind once more. It would take some research and some further scans to see. But there was something else to be found. Not just jacking into the frequencies of other people, but perhaps something about Gabe's brain wasn't able to produce the correct hormones any longer without getting a blueprint or an example from someone else. Or he could be completely wrong. This was a puzzle that would be best solved by Caitlin, but that wasn't going to happen.

For now, he had video to monitor and erase. He couldn't exactly leave a record of his conversation for his team to find. Once he returned to the main lab, he set up the sensors of Gabe's cell to focus on brain waves and hormone levels. He wanted to see exactly what would happen when the emotional manipulator was well and truly cut off.

[musicboxings]

Gabe shouts and makes noise as much as he possibly can until the door closes--and even then, it takes him a few more moments of yelling at the top of his lungs until he tires himself out.

His chest is heaving, his entire world pulled out from underneath him. He knew he was playing with fire--but Gabe had always won. Always. This was different.

He slumps down the wall and puts his head in his hands, concentrates on breathing evenly. Getting worked up won't help. Being anything but his true nature wouldn't help. He needs something else. Some sort of--anything. A distraction. Anything.

But Gabe is alone.

He does, in an irrational display of hatred, yank of his shoes and pitch them across the small cell, just for one little fuck you to Wells and his idea.






The sad thing is he actually thinks about it and he thinks about it fairly quickly. He's not going to commit suicide, though. Wells would like that. Instead, he feels like he's starving. He feels like his entire body is eating itself from the inside; not being able to connect with someone. It doesn't matter if it's happy or sad--he needs someone. Anyone.

He hums. Humming turns into singing, and he doesn't actually have half a bad voice.



Gabe's not sure how long it's been. The last time these shakes, this feeling like he was going to tear himself apart happened, it was when he hit the 12 hour mark without talking or being near a single person. He tried it, locking himself in his hotel room. Couldn't do it.

He's starting to get desperate. Starting to get almost twitchy. The songs have stopped, and desperately tapping at his knee has started. He doesn't realize it. All he realizes are those shoes and those shoelaces. Wells had put the idea in his mind. Why not do it?

No. No, he couldn't. He couldn't, that was stupid. He wasn't going to die from lack of human emotion. That was ridiculous.

And yet, he felt like he was being drained, somehow.

"I can't take it," He murmurs, and considers the shoelaces again. The only problem is that they're across from him and he can't reach. He literally doesn't have the energy to move. It's sapped from him.

[contranitoris]

It hadn't been 12 hours. By that time, the others would have returned and they'd have a mess on their hands. But a hotel room was not as cut off as Gabe's cell. Wood and plaster did little to stop the fact that in a hotel, one was never more than ten or twelve feet from another human being. But that cell was as isolated as if Gabe had been dropped in the middle of the desert. The tech in the walls prevented his powers from reaching behind the glass, beyond the small confines of that space.

And all the while, Harrison watched with rapt attention. He'd routed all of the readings to Gideon instead of letting them be stored on the main systems. It was fascinating seeing what was happening. He even consulted his AI more than a few times to get input on the aspects he didn't quite understand.

For all intents and purposes, Gabe was going through withdrawal. It was fascinating to watch, both on the video feed and on the bio scans. More importantly, watching the hormonal levels as Gabe declined. They were depleting, rapidly. In a normal human, they would even out, find a sort of equilibrium. But for Gabe they were bottoming out entirely. No wonder he couldn't help himself.

It was only when Gabe finally spoke, rather than sang, that Harrison did anything. One moment Gabe was alone and the next, Harrison stood at his door again. Hands clasped behind his back. "It would seem," he said as if they hadn't and a several hour lapse in their conversation. "That you were wrong. You're not actually dying. What you are feeling is similar to withdrawal from any narcotic. You have been relying on the hormones of others for so long, your body is unable to produce any of it's own. In a few hours, we might find out what happens when your stolen hormones have cleared your system."

[musicboxings]

"It's not withdrawal, I'm dying." Gabe says, but there's a distinct lack of anger. A lack of arrogance, too--Gabe sounds hollow. He feels hollow. He doesn't quite feel like much of anything at the moment.

Harrison is there. Like he never left, Harrison is there. Hands behind his back. Smug. Gabe's not asking for much--Gabe's asking to be near someone. That's it. That's all. And this guy is spouting off some nonsense like Gabe feeds on human emotions like one of those 'emotional vampires' books he knows Natalie has.

He feels clammy. Sweaty. Gabe steels his gaze as best as he can, but really, he just feels like he has some sort of hayfever.

"In a few hours I'll be dead, so it won't matter, Wells."

[contranitoris]

"It only feels as if you're dying, that's what withdrawal is," he said, calm as ever.

He stared down at Gabe, impassive and uncaring. If this were anyone else on his team, he would have actually shown some care, he would have been sympathetic and encouraging. Telling them they could get through this, pushing them. Even if his intent was to let them die, he'd still do it. And he'd be honest about it. But Gabe had insulted him. Robbed him of something. So there was nothing spared for him.

"If it were actual narcotics, there are things to counteract the effects. But I'm afraid those would only make your problem worse. And if I'm wrong and you truly are dying...well..."

He stepped closer to the glass, the angle throwing his face into shadow and making him loom over the young man. "...I'd consider that justice for what you've done to my team and I."

[musicboxings]

"No," He's adamant, "I'm dying." Not that he'd know about shit like withdrawal--he's a suburban kid, used to playing football and kissing girls under the bleachers. A year grifting isn't enough to fix that.

"Screw you, by the way." Because he has nothing to lose and honestly, some company while he withers is a pretty nice idea. Someone to get mad at, though he doesn't think he has the ability to get mad at anyone or anything right now. He's tired.

"You here to shove it in my face? That it didn't work? Already aware of my plan crashing and burning, thanks."

[contranitoris]

Harrison merely tilted his head at the words, listening closely. Interesting. If the boys hormones were draining away, taking all the emotion with it, such anger shouldn't have been possible. Depression should have been settling. Apathy. Indifference. And yet, that's not at all what he was hearing.

"Can't I simply want to observe? If I see how you deteriorate, I can understand what's happening. If you've never gone this long without exposing yourself to the emotions of someone else, how can you know what's happening? What one assumes to be the feeling of dying is more often than not burning desperation, not impending death."

As he spoke, he didn't move. His gaze stayed locked on Gabe. Poking and prodding to see what would happen.

[musicboxings]

It's rage, but it's checkered with something else. It's probably because Gabe still gives a shit, deep down. Even though he keeps claiming he's dying and he doesn't care. His face pulls into a small smile that doesn't even reach his eyes.

He's already sweating, already curled into himself and he feels like he can't move, the hunger is too strong.

"It's like dangling a chicken in front of a starving crocodile." His eyes slip closed. "You like poking things with a stick? It's not fun when you're on the other end."

[contranitoris]

Slowly, Harrison lowered into a crouch to get closer to Gabe. The movement was eerily fluid. With one knee higher than the other, his hands drooping with fingers loosely laced together he still managed to look imposing when closer to the ground. But it had everything to do with the way he continued to watch Gabe, that piercing gaze still unwavering.

"No, but I know what's it's like to be cut off from your power. I assure you, Gabe, you're not starving, you're just feeling what most people feel. You've lost the rush. I'd thought your hormone levels would continue to drop, but that's not what's happening. They're only returning to normal. You've been flying high on stolen dopamine and serotonin. Now you're crashing. Not starving."

[musicboxings]

Gabe is quiet for a few moments, and it's hard to tell if he's done something like nod off or just contemplate the other's sayings. It is, for a moment, a bit of both.

"You know if I got too attached to you guys I had an alternate plan?" He says suddenly, and one eye cracks open. "I thought just in case. Seeing you guys, you were like a real family."

He snorts, light, and stares over at his shoes at the other end of the cell.

"Turns out you're a big of a dick as I am."

[contranitoris]

For just a moment, Harrison's gaze flicked downward to the floor. Something that looked almost like remorse passed over his features, if just for a split second. Because he knew exactly what Gabe meant.

His team was never meant to be what they were. They were just techs and doctors, pawns in grand plan. So often he forced himself to feel think of them that way. But something had started to creep under that cold, hard conviction. Especially over the last year. Oh, he'd kill them in an instant if it was necessary for his plan. But right up until that point, he'd come to think of them rather fondly. Children he'd never have.

"And what plan was that?" he asked, calm as ever, as if there'd been no shift in his emotions. Because unlike the others, Gabe was a cuckoo. Inserting himself where he didn't belong. Usurping what was meant for those more deserving. Harrison had no remorse for him.

[musicboxings]

"Come on. I'm young but I'm not totally stupid." Just mostly, apparently. His eyes slip closed again, shifting so he's a little lower, scrunching up his face as he winces. He thinks his ass is going numb from how still he's sat.

He exhales through his nose and even that seems like a chore, feeling dry in almost every aspect, despite sweating from what he's fairly certain is some sort of fever. It's not withdrawal. He knows it is, deep down.

"That emotional register for meta humans. I'd take the unstable ones once you built it after I talked to them for a little. Make sure it's the ones you guys don't care about. Supply myself and help you out in the process, if you dying wasn't going to happen."

A beat.

"I don't like things without failsafes. Makes me jittery."

[contranitoris]

A slow smile twisted at Harrison's lips and he let out a soft sort of laugh through his nose. Shaking his head, he reached up to slowly tug his glasses off his face. Even as he said it, Gabe didn't seem to realize what he was describing. It fit so painfully well. It had just been a theory that he was running with, but it sounded more and more like he'd hit on the truth.

"That..." he said emphatically, gesturing with his glasses and letting them tap gently on the glass. "...is precisely what junkies say. That's basically what's happening here. But I'm afraid your little plan would have never worked."

In one fluid motion, he pushed back to his feet and settled his glasses back onto his face. "Unstable or otherwise, our guests are few and far between. You'd have dry spells and would go seeking your fix elsewhere. Why venture out of the lab, when you have so many sources for you fix right here? I'd never risk that."

[musicboxings]

It wasn't a bad one, in his opinion. Actually, it was pretty genius. Not super-level genius, but for a 20 year old who'd skipped the last year of high school? Pretty damn good.

He can feel the smugness from Harrison. Not like he can feed off of it, but it makes the hair stand up on the back of his neck as he finally moves. He doesn't move very far--just tilts his torso so he's hugging his legs and laying down in a fetal position.

"Are you just rubbing this in my face now?" It was an honest question, staring up at him, looking pale. It wasn't a particularly good look on him. "Is that why you're here?"

[contranitoris]

Harrison's gaze turned toward the ceiling, as of considering Gabe's words. Was he rubbing it in? He'd been mocking everyone around him with his intelligence since the start. Quips and jabs that would have been like grinding salt into wounds if they'd had any knowledge of the truth. It was honestly hard to say where that ended and it became simply rubbing it in out of sheer malice.

"I'm here..." he said, slowly, bringing his gaze back to the curled up form in the cell, "...to observe. As I've said. There are things that you just can't learn from bio scans."

With a slight flourish, he pulled his new ear pieces from his pocket. He'd made a few adjustments in the intervening hours, perfecting the design now that he understood exactly what Gabe was doing. He pushed it into his ear and flicked it on. On this side the glass, it didn't seem to do anything at all.

"For example..." He started to blur. From head to toe. Then in a blink, he was inside the cell, standing over the prone form. The blur faded quickly, leaving him just staring down at Gabe as the last sparks of red electricity fell away.

[musicboxings]

He would have rolled his eyes if he could--he only half notices the flourish, too wound up in his own self misery and pity. He puts something in his ears again--probably to just mock him--but the other vibrates, moves--

--and Gabe uses the last of his energy to jerk his head up from the floor, eyes wide, at the fact that Harrison was suddenly there.

It hits him like a brick--relief is evident on his face, even though he's still on the floor and confused as all hell. Can he meld through stuff, too? It doesn't matter. He's not getting pain, but he's getting feeling. He's getting the presence of another person, their aura, their hormones or whatever the fuck he'd said.

He's not alone.

"How?" He asks, not because he really wants to know but because he's floored and can't think of anything else to say as wind goes rushing back into his lungs.

[contranitoris]

A slow smile stretched over Harrison's face as Gabe reacted. This was a major risk. One small miscalculation and the effects of the ear piece could be overpowered. His speed could fail him and he wouldn't be fast enough to stop Gabe from trying something. He could end up trapped in the cell. But he had to know.

How would the emotion junkie react to being exposed to someone again? Could he still take the emotions without being inside someone's head? Were the false memories vital to the process, or were they an advantage of the young man's abilities? There were too many questions left unanswered.

"Just one power is versatile when you know how to use it properly."

He didn't move. He just watched. Waiting. Checking his own thoughts to make sure they were his own. At least as best as he could know.

[musicboxings]

"This is a carrot on a stick," Gabe says suddenly, and he already feels better. Stronger. All it took was someone's presence and he couldn't taste anything, no, but he could feel.

He's not fully to himself, but he can sit up now with only a slight amount of wincing.

"You're just doing this to fuck with me. See how fast I run with it in front of me?"

He pauses, and, after just a short moment, brings his shaky self to stand, though he's leaning heavily on the wall. He looks Wells square in the eye.

"You just mash yourself against the wall until you come back out the other side?"

[contranitoris]

Interesting. An almost immediate improvement. It was quite possible that the feeding on emotion allowed Gabe to get inside of people's heads, rather than the other way around. By duplicating a person's hormones, perhaps even brainwaves, it created a sympathetic connection. Similar to the effects of the Firestorm matrix, but temporary and more parasitic.

More importantly, Gabe seemed to be a passive feeder. Taking in whatever he could. If he could learn to control it, if he could do it without active effecting memories, he could be quite useful. But there was no way to trust someone who could change memories with a merely passing thought. Even the vague memories convincing enough to trick himself.

In a blink, he was back on the outside of the glass, his clothes settling in the wake of his sudden movement, his hands behind his back as if he'd never moved in the first place.

"Something like that," he remarked. Without knowing the real Gabe, he had no way to know if he'd even understand the concepts involved. "About the glass, not the carrot."

[musicboxings]

Gabe has a hand on the glass already, palms splayed, almost like he'd been there the entire time, just like Harrison had seemingly been behind the glass his entire conversation. The only reason Gabe knows it's not true is because he saw it with his own eyes, really.

"I'm right about both," he mutters, and he's sure of it almost as much as he's sure about Harrison keeping him here and monitoring him instead of just killing him.

"Did I hurt your ego that bad, Wells? Did I emotionally shank you?"

[contranitoris]

"My ego is not so nearly as fragile as you think," Harrison admitted with a vague smile. "You only get to be a good scientist by being able to admit when you've been wrong. Or misled. What matters is finding the right path again."

He leaned closer to the glass again. "And you..." Another quirk of a smile, "...have shown me exactly what I need to find the right path. In fact, you're just what I needed for another....experiment of mine. So it comes down to a choice. You can stay here in the lab, but I cannot allow you to continue altering the memories of my staff. The only catch is that you will be wearing....a device. It will monitor and regulate what you take from others. Or, you can refuse, and I leave you to whither away."

[musicboxings]

Gabe's brows knit, and it's obvious he's not trying to grope for some sort of well-placed lie. He's weighing the pros and cons, weighing a very heavy and hefty price for an equally appealing deal.

He has no way of knowing if Harrison will fuck him over or not. That's what's causing him grief.

"I have to come clean to the rest of the lab?" He asks. Still cautious. Still weighing. Even if he doesn't really have a choice. Give him just a bit of his pride, would you?

[contranitoris]

Harrison gave a slow shake of his head. "I never said that. As far as I can tell, even without your direct influence the memories remain. I said to not continue altering them. If you come clean, it could be quite messy, explaining just how I found you out. You'll continue to act as though nothing has changed."

He tilted his head slightly in a not quite nod, as if encouraging the other to continue. "It's up to you."

[musicboxings]

"Then we have a deal," he says softly. Gabe forces himself to stand, mostly because he felt a little degraded having to sit in the cell, and he leans against the wall. He tries to mask it as a simple move, something subconscious, but he's still tired. He still needs someone there, and close.

"I won't tell your dirty little secret, or spill mine, and i'll stay with...whatever you're doing with that. Fine. Yes--I'll do it. Works better for both of us."

Thank God. He can do his usual thing, now--and maybe get something good out of it. Maybe it's not a lost cause.

[contranitoris]

"If I even suspect you've breathed a word of it, you will sorely regret it." There was a tone to his voice that went beyond cold. The sort of warning that went beyond merely killing. The sort of tone that spoke volumes of just how much suffering he knew how to inflict and he wouldn't even feel bad about it.

He lingered for a moment, gaze boring into Gabe, before he was simply gone, leaving behind nothing but red sparks of electricity. Minutes ticked by, the Pipeline left in utter silence. And when it seemed he would be gone for good, he was back just as fast. Not just to the cell, but inside it. Shoving Gabe hard against the glass as he wrenched a collar around the young man's neck.