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 just watched Gabe lose his mind. It wasn't an uncommon reaction to being dropped so suddenly in a cell. Some went catatonic, others simply accepted their fate. But most, like Gabe, turned frantic. Throwing whatever power they had at the door. And sealed away so completely, Harrison could feel the influence finally draining away. Made it easier to figure out which memories were false.

He wondered if the others were having a similar effect. If distance had anything to do with it, or if it was simply that he was more aware of what was happening. He'd find out in the morning, he was sure.

"That's an excellent place to start, Gabe. Why did you want to kill me?" He stood stalk still on the other side of the glass, hands clasped behind his back. Patient and waiting. They had all night.

[musicboxings]

"It's not that I wanted to kill you--" Both of Gabe's hands are on the glass, now, and he's breathing heavily. Is it hot in here? It's hot in here. He swears it's hot in here, swears he's going to start sweating. It's not because he's in the middle of freaking out. He can't be. He has to remain calm. His gaze focuses straight at Harrison, watching how smug he looked with his hands behind his back. Like a collector of rare birds.

This cage sucked.

"--it's more, I wanted to get you to kill yourself. I don't get anything out of it if I do it. Which is exactly why you should let me out of here, and let's face it--if I somehow decided to, which, why? You could zoom away faster than a 3-song punk album."

He'll get to the actual answer in a moment.

[contranitoris]

Interesting. Most metas that Harrison had dealt with until now would have gloated about it. Or at least been shameless in their admission. But not with Gabe. There was something more desperate to it. It wasn't a vendetta or revenge or pride. Nothing that usually drove those who wanted him dead. No, instead Gabe was just desperate.

It wasn't just that he wanted to do it. He needed to do it. Not that he needed to kill Harrison specifically, it didn't seem all that personal. It was a need like it had been for Blackout. With him, it had been electricity, energy. He needed to draw power to keep himself alive. But with Gabe, was it something more subtle? Something that wasn't such an obvious drain, but damaging either way.

"Not if your powers worked as well as you'd wanted them to. If you could convince even me that I'd known you for years, even if just for a few days, then just about anything could be possible. But the question I asked you. Gabe. Was why."

[musicboxings]

"Because the sadder someone is, the better it is. Especially if I can stay with them. I thought who would have more self loathing than the guy that endangered, like, pretty much everyone? Clearly I was wrong." Harrison didn't look like he was remorseful in the least--not this new, speedy Harrison.

His hands are still on the glass. His left one shifts, but it's still the same. He tries to put it into words.

It's difficult, not because he's lying--lying would do absolutely no good to him now--but because he doesn't quite understand it himself.

"I just... need them to. I need them to do it. I need to be the one to build them up and knock them down, and the feel of it.. The taste--it's like nothing I can describe, it's better than sex, I--I need it. I need their last spike of desperation. I don't want it, I need it."

[contranitoris]

Harrison's head bowed slightly as he took it in. He was right. Gabe was feeding on the emotion. But not just any emotion. Negative emotions. Desperation, sadness, fear, loathing, dread. All of the things that pushed a person to taking their own life. Perhaps even the relief that came after. If they were talking flavors, he wondered if that served as something like an after dinner mint to a meal that took a long time to prepare.

He lifted his head, impervious to the desperate hands on the glass, wondering what would happen if he'd left Gabe in there for long enough. It could be genuine hunger, in which case he would slowly waste away. Or it could be merely a fix. Something that would nearly destroy him with its absence until it wasn't unbearable any longer.

"If that is what you need, then what makes you think I could ever trust you? I let you out, you get what you need for everyone around you. I cannot have my staff subjected to suicidal tendencies. Not with our line of work."

[musicboxings]

"You've got that thing in your ear, for one." Gabe is quick to point that out. "And whatever it did--I'm not perfect,but I'm pretty damn good at worming my way in. That stopped it immediately. Truth is, you're the only person that's ever caught me that wasn't my sister." And honestly? Fuck Natalie. Self-absorbed brat.

"It doesn't have to be anyone in particular. That's what I'm saying--I can help you get whoever for whatever reason you really need them for, and then I can do my thing. The whole metahuman emotion thing--I wanted to use it so I could snap them up. You get tired of studying them, I get a satisfied. You get an inkling of depression, you chuck me in here. Truth is? Truth is I've got nothing to lose, Wells."

[contranitoris]

A slow, eerie smile spread over Harrison's face. The sort of smile that never came close to reaching the eyes. Gabe honestly thought that line of logic would work with him. That simply saying he'd play nice with everyone would get him out of his cage. A new tactic, at least. But a useless one.

"This..." he said, reaching up to tug the device out of his ear. "Is nothing more than a temporary fix. It scrambles the signal you've been putting out, rather than stopping it completely. This little thing isn't what let me see you for what you are."

He dropped the device into his pocket and leaned closer to the glass. His gaze flicked to Gabe's hand pressed there, dragging a finger over the smooth surface, before looking to Gabe. Close enough for his breath to briefly fog the glass. "What let me see all that you were was you assumed I loved Tess Morgan. You assumed she was my wife. I've only met her once. As her dying breath left of her body."

[musicboxings]

Gabe doesn't recoil, but he does look interested. He'd assumed--why he'd assumed he doesn't know, it all seems a blur--but he figured it out on his own, completely and totally.

Honestly, Gabe's kind of impressed. That's smart. He knew Wells was a genius, sure, but this is a different level of intelligence. Gabe half-smiles through the glass, watching him intently, until he says something not quite right.

Gabe's eyes narrow.

"That doesn't make any sense--I met her on a field trip. She was definitely married to you. How..."

[contranitoris]

There was that smile again, eerie and unsettling. For a moment, he just watched Gabe trying to figure it out. He had every intent of disposing of the Meta before anyone else returned to the lab, so what was the harm in showing his hand? No one else was going to find out.

"I'm sure you did. Base every lie in a bit of truth to hide he seams. But that's what happens when you blunder through. Not that I expected you to see it, but when you're rooting in other people's minds you need to be aware of hidden pitfalls. You see..." His voice dropped even lower, a husky, rhaspy tone that was even less like himself than anything before. "I am not Harrison Wells."

[musicboxings]

"It doesn't work like that--" Gabe starts to say, starts to point out that this whole thing isn't even anything remotely related to how he did it--when the other lowered his voice.

Amazing, how just a simple change in pitch can throw an entire conversation in its ass. How the truth can just sort of blindside you. Gabe looks surprised, not bothering to show it, but there's no ounce of betrayal or the like on his face. Why should he feel cheated? Wells just did what Gabe did without powers.

He's goddamn impressed.

"You got another name, then, or is it just Wells for the rest of the time I'm with you?"

[contranitoris]

Harrison wasn't quite sure what to expect when revealing that little tidbit, but it certainly wasn't what he got. Surprise, yes, but not shock. Not confusion or disbelief. Nothing that usually came with a reveal like his true identity. He was finding himself curious about this young man, a dangerous thing for a scientist to be.

"My name, my actual name, doesn't matter. Because from your perspective, I haven't been born yet. My parents haven't even been born yet. Not even my grandparents. So it's not a name you could possibly know. So yes. Gabe. You might as well go on calling me Wells for the very small remainder of your life. Because that is the only reason I'm telling you any of this. Not that I'd ever trust you with it, but that you won't live long enough to tell anyone what you've learned."

[musicboxings]

"Fine. Kill me." And his words are suddenly heated. Where Wells gets cocky, Gabe gets mad. And he is--he's frustrated, too, that with everything, he can't do shit. He's stick here, probably going to die, probably going to fucking wilt.

"You'll never figure out how I work, though. How to use this--" He points to his head with his index finger "--on other people. That's something that'll take a while and that's something you can't get from my dead body, Wells."

It's his one last gambit. The only thing he has left.

[contranitoris]

Some of that cockiness melted away with a rather majestic level eye roll. The sort of expression that spoke volumes of a man tired of distilling his beyond genius level IQ down to a level that the average idiot could understand.

"There is a lot I can learn from dissecting a brain," he said, gaze settling back on Gabe. "There is also a lot I can learn from the biometic scans I've been running since the moment I figured out you weren't all you seemed. I had to know what you did in order stop it. A low level bio frequency that interferes with the low level energy field that every human produces. You are basically hacking into that and reprogramming a few hormonal responses to gain the desired emotional effect. Hence scrambling the signal. It's not the how or the what that I need you alive for. It's the why. But I already have that answer."

He moved closer again, ominous and looming. "You don't know." There it was again, that dark, husky tone.

[musicboxings]

Shit.

Gabe's anger is still there, still very much alive and inherent, but he can't do anything. He's trapped; useless, left to feel like a caged animal with a death sentence looming over him. Nothing he's trying is working and Wells was reading him like a book. No--less than a book. Gabe might as well have been a fucking pamphlet.

The hand against the glass curls.

"I could help you find out--I can't be in here. I can't be on my own. It's not a matter of pride or anything stupid like that. Wells. Wells. I can't do it."

[contranitoris]

"Can't do what?" He asked, completely without sympathy. In fact, he sounded almost mocking. "Dying is pretty easy when you think about it. Which...I know you have. Consider it the ultimate test. Something that your death might very well prove. If you do die locked away, we'll know you really did need it. Or..."

His head tilted, gaze drifting slightly as an idea occurred to him. He was hardly a psychologist, and could only infer so far. But it was possible, given the way other metas produced their powers. It was always based on their circumstances at the time the particle accelerator exploded. Their activities or their mental state or their personality. Gabe didn't seem outright malicious, even if death was something he wanted to cause. He lacked the cold core of a killer. Which is what led Harrison to his conclusion.

A slow smile spread over his face again, subtle but still present, as his gaze flicked back to Gabe's face. "...we find out where your need to feel suicide from a first-person perspective actually comes from. I did--" He glanced down at Gabe's feet, then back to his face. "--leave your shoelaces, after all."

[musicboxings]

Gabe's face falls.

"What?" He asks, even though he knows every well what's happened. The conclusion Wells has made. It's a damn good one, too. It's one that rings a little too true, a little too thick, like too much butter on a small amount of bread.

Gabe has never wanted to drain the life from someone more than when he sees that smile on Wells' face.

He lets out a yell--it's loud, and it's primal--and without even thinking he smashes both of his hands on the clear part of the cell, as if that can somehow quell the sudden surge of rage.

Fuck Wells.

Fuck Wells.

"You're a goddamn piece of shit," he hisses, and it's still seething with rage as he pounds on the glass a third time. A forth time.

He's not sure when he actually starts screaming for Wells to let him out.

[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."