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]

"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.

[musicboxings]

"Fine," Gabe repeats, and there's frustration fitting of a 20 year old laced in his voice. He'll do it. He'll do it to survive and then find a way to leave this entire shit can behind him. Maybe Coast City. His parents got married there.

What seems like hours tick by and, suddenly worried, and he puts a hand to the glass to try to peer around. He's nowhere to be seen. Wells has ditched him. Injected him with a nice round ofhope and then--

And then he's practically slammed against glass and something's being put on him. A collar, and Gabe's hands fly up to grab at what it is. He's about to pull it off when his brain catches up with how fast Wells is going. Almost immediately he drops his hands, brows wide, showing it was completely unintentional. That he's doing this willingly.

"Something tells me you're going to fuck me over," he mutters, but on his face is still that sweet, all-american smile.

[contranitoris]

The clasp of the collar didn't seem to need to be manually buckled. It let out a mechanical sort of hiss, vibrating faintly against Gabe's neck, before going silent and still. If he dug at the thing, he'd find a faint seam where everything met, but no apparent means of unlatching the thing. Only once it was secure, Harrison moved back half a step, as the cell didn't allow for much else. He stood rigidly, watching Gabe with a cold gaze.

After a moment he gave a faint shrug, the chilly look melting into vague amusement. "I find people often see themselves in other people, so that would really be a reflection on your own intentions, would it not? Though I doubt what's about to happen will do much to assuage your doubts. Very soon, in fact, as in three...two…"

Just as he would have said "one" the collar seemed to let out a high pitched whine. No, it wasn't the collar. It was something inside Gabe's head. Because that same moment, it would feel as if he'd been suddenly kicked in the back of the head. No actual physical pain, but a rather intense wave of vertigo and for a few moments it would be like his body forgot how the mechanics of breathing worked.