Gabriel Reed (matchesmade) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-05-26 23:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | emma woodhouse, marian |
Who: Gabriel Reed, Laura Daniels
What: A very very tame movie date (with minor lifechanging event)
When: Friday night
Where: Downtown
Warnings: Kissing. Violence.
Laura found that, even after the discussion with Gabe on the phone, there were still some deep-set doubts in her mind thanks to Eloise’s visit to the shop. The battered part of her insisted that she not go, that she pull back, that she have nothing to do with Gabe. That it was a risk that was too risky, and that would lead to pain and trouble. But there was also the part that grew warm at Gabe’s voice, that smiled at his comments, and that wanted (even if nothing else ever happened) to go out just once. History showed that taking her out was inevitably a bad idea, but she tried to put that out of her mind. Just for a little while. Just so that she could feel a little bit like a normal woman again.
Her outfit was admittedly casual, not far from what she usually wore. It felt miles away from something that she thought his ex would wear, as she’d seemed more prone to dresses and softer, feminine things. Whether the difference between her and Laura was a conscious decision on Gabe’s part, it didn’t matter. Laura wasn’t that type of woman, and never had been. She’d only favored skirts when she was younger, when leg and a laugh could get you free drinks all night. And those skirts were far from the proper cut of something Eloise might wear. The thought didn’t matter, and neither did the comparison, as Laura decided on jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. Something light enough to compensate for the heat, but her sleeves stayed securely down around her wrists. The collar of it dipped down just slightly, and while Laura’s vanity pricked at her, she knew Gabe had already seen the scar on her neck. They would both just have to deal with it. Though it didn’t stop her from leaving her hair a loose spill of waves down over her shoulders. It would hopefully (along with some makeup) help to hide the worst of it.
She’d left a note for Max, something appropriately vague about going out and being back later, though she knew her roommate would be able to make the jump to reading between the lines. And she’d gotten pulled into a conversation that had almost convinced her not to go out. Laura simply didn’t go out, not unless it was to work or work out. And the evening excursion was obviously neither. When the conversation was finally done, she walked away from the apartment and then called a cab to get her to the movie theater with plenty of time to meet Gabe before the film.
The man who limped up to the ticket booth out front did so without instability or uncertainty. The cane was a smooth piece of the whole, the clipped sound of wood and rubber on concrete and then the rest of the man, elision of sound that seemed - in Gabriel’s hands, at least - wholly usual. Miracles there might be, among the broken-toys of the CIA relegated to the Vegas branch, agents cleared and active, but the absolute ease with which Gabe navigated the sidewalk belied the possibility that there might be one for him, too. He smiled, instead, and the rattle of keys in his palm was a pleasantness, an unfamiliar one now after a stretch of years without one truly his own.
The house was fine. It was plain white walls and a view of a small garden that looked, to Gabriel who had been neither discerning nor knowing but rather shoved hands in his pockets and smiled at the woman in possession of the information as soundly as if he’d had all the answers, promising. He could, he supposed, get a book out on it. They sold books about gardens, he could read one. He could garden. It was a pleasing picture right up until he added in the cane, and then the smile turned rueful, but he signed the paperwork anyhow. It was space enough for two kids to pile in, and hardwood floors that didn’t muffle the grip of the cane and it was quiet, no hum of the ice machine and no cars sliding in and out all night long.
He smiled at the ticket-booth, and the line shuffled around him - Gabriel said something, and the woman behind the plastic glass laughed and then she smiled and for a moment there was no line at all and he came away with his tickets and stood where the sunshine stretched itself to gold shadow on sidewalk, the loose heat comfortable enough to stretch into like a cat. He was broad shoulders in a pale shirt, and the dark shadow spreading up the jaw of a man who had spent much of the day behind a desk and hadn’t gone back home in between. The cab slid in to the kerb and the smile lifted, something about the eyes and the corners of the mouth that made it a true, warm thing and he stood with both hands on the cane and he waited, easy and relaxed.
Laura hadn’t thought she was running late, but there was Gabe on the sidewalk when the cab pulled up. She paid the driver with a small smile and let herself out of the car, navigating around passing people to bring her nearer to the theater and the man waiting for her. Her stomach gave a little turn of nerves, unused to showing up for what could only be considered a date. She’d tried not to think of it that way, because it set off all sorts of warnings in her mind, and she’d passed her time with work and (amazingly) housework. She’d never been overly fond of it before, but it’d lent a calm to her recent days, and that was something she wouldn’t turn her nose up at. A calm she could use a little more of, seeing Gabe waiting there.
“...Hi.”
The sidewalk was a threaded knot of people and Gabe leaned against the solid brickwork; between that and the cane, there was a surety in lack of motion and he neither moved toward her nor did he make particular and distinct overture but the smile - distinct, and clear, and easy - broadened until it was something that was overture by itself. He rocked forward, the cane planted deep, and the gait was something made smooth through practice, a rollicking of hip and knee that managed despite odd alignment. He was height, and sun-warmed shirt and close, the grey had veined deeply back at his temples, silver glints in hair that looked like it had last been close-cropped and now was over-long. The shirt was crumpled, but it looked like perhaps, when he’d put it on, it might have been pressed; it looked expensive, the thin weft of tightly woven cotton.
He leaned in; the smell of mint and of bergamot and the underlying warmth of coffee clinging, and he kissed her cheek. It was a passing thing, his lips very light but the graze of his jaw was evening stubble. The tickets were produced, a magician’s sleight of hand; Gabe was deft about the cane’s shift into his left hand, the flick of fingers and bright-colored card and a grin.
“It might not make a damn bit of sense,” he said amiably, low and pleased, “But they sell beer, so it might make more sense at the end than the beginning.”
His smile made Laura smile in return, something tentative but real. She was different than she had been the other two times they’d met in person, less obviously friendly and instead more reserved. And though she would deny it, it was the pre-planning of the meeting that turned it from something friendly into something more. And with the memory of Eloise still so clearly recent in her mind, “something more” was suddenly something dangerous. She could believe the man she’d spoken with, met more than once, that made her smile and warm. Or she could believe a woman that had randomly walked into the shop and started telling her things about an ex. The decision made Laura nervous and confused, so she ended up simply ignoring it. In a way that still brought her to the movie theater.
The cane and the silvered hair made her smile, tempered any sort of defensive apprehension she’d normally have around a man with Gabe’s stature, and it made her drop her guard enough for him to lean in to brush that kiss against her cheek. The part of her that was more vocal lately - the part that wanted to move past her own history and actually be interested in someone else again - wanted to lean into him, return the kiss with one of her own against his rough cheek, breathe in the clean male scent of him. And something else in her mind agreed with that. But the other part of her, the one that still remembered violent criminals and cruel guards and locked metal bars, wanted him away. It was that part that moved first (strike first, questions second), digging her thumb hard into a pressure point on his wrist, one that was meant to cause pain and weakness, the hand that was holding his cane and providing support. She did it without thinking, eyes wide and blinking once she realized what she was doing.
“Sorry. Oh my god. I’m so sorry.” Mortified at herself and her automatic reactions, she stepped back, fingers trying to smooth away any lingering reaction of his to her hold on his wrist, but it was so much more than just a sore wrist.
There were pain points and pressure points all over the body. Anatomists knew them, the skeletal structure overlapped with waves of soft pink muscle, deconstruction in diagrams. Electric waves sent through them made them twitch. Doctors knew them - to manipulate, to control, to ease. Agents learned them, in classrooms, ranks of desks and the mundanity of pain jointed down to its barest parts. Instead of a flinch, it was the particular vertebrae likely to cause paralysis. Instead of a spasm, it was the precise technique of finger and thumb to cause it. There were pain and pressure points all over the body and for a moment - as his hand both stung and went numb, all at once - Gabe was reminded of the slow drone, the Latinate names for places on the body he had been shocked, the brutal use of his own body’s construction against him. The cane fell - senseless fingers groped for it, but the weight of it swung and then clattered. It was stabilizing force, the weight forced onto the weak knee and the leg and fire burst within the joint, white crackling at the corners of his eyes; Gabe staggered, his hand caught on her shoulder, he went down.
The sidewalk was a great deal dirtier than any one person might think, at average adult height well above it. Gabe fell the way someone taught did; with a weighted kind of gracelessness, the folding in of limbs, the ceding to what was inevitable. It hurt; his teeth ground together, electricity sparked wildly along his spine and the pain-killer blanket wound around the ongoing, dull pain of the knee set alight in a blaze. He heard, dimly, the oh my God and sorry, and he was silent, that long minute it took to parcel up what was, for at least a moment, agony and fasten it behind learned walls.
“I want to know,” he said, after a minute, and then realized he could and the ground-glass and low-gravel voice unclenched and became easier, “How the hell you know how to do that. Help me up?”
She caught the cane as it was falling, it never joining Gabe on the ground. She tried to keep him up as well, but while she wasn't slight, she didn't have enough bulk to keep a man his size from falling. Her hands were there, trying to help even before he asked for it, not pulling until he looked ready to try to stand again. Guilt flared in her mind, making her breathless with the embarrassment and awful feelings that seeing him on the ground sent through her.
"Shit," she whispered, "I told her this is why I shouldn't..." She trailed off though, not completing the thought that was meant more for herself than for him. There was muscle to her arms when she helped him back up, enough to steady him when he wasn't in a sort of free-fall. "I'm sorry," she repeated, but didn't answer his ground-out question.
He put weight on her shoulder because the leg wouldn’t take it; there was no sound, as Gabriel got back to his feet, no hiss of breath or muttered curse. His head was lowered; the flare of nostrils, the widened pupils, all small indicators lost in the stretch of his hand, the grip of calloused palm and the startlingly heavy weight for a minute before he took the cane. The cane made it better - not good, but better and he tried weight on that before he tried weight on the leg. His vision blurred white once again, and the lean on the cane was a shift in the line of his shoulders, an adaptation that took into account changed landscape with the swiftness of one used to making such things.
When he lifted his head, cane gripped securely in his right hand, he was smiling with the same evident ease as he had before; “Next time, tell a man if you mean to knock him over first.” He didn’t think much of she whoever ‘her’ was, and when he looked at her - eyes clear, but suddenly tired in a way they hadn’t been just before - it was with the almost certain impression of assessing Laura once again, looking for things not seen the first time around.
“Let’s try this again, shall we?”
She tensed under his weight, but didn't balk, didn't move away. Her hands steadied where they could until she was certain he was stable again, following the shift of muscle under skin and clothing. She was too preoccupied with making certain he wouldn't fall again for her to notice the small, hidden signs of pain, but she guessed that he wasn't quite as okay as he was leading on.
"You startled me," she defended herself, quiet but stubborn. "I didn't expect it..." The tiredness in his eyes was easy enough to read, and her own expression fell a bit. She'd tried to tell Max how much of a bad idea her attempting to go on a date would be, but the other woman had brushed it aside. But with the unwanted violence against the man that was actually interested in her enough to invite her out, Laura was even more convinced of how bad of an idea it had really been.
"I'm sorry. You want me to go." It came out half as a question and half as a statement. She didn't anticipate that any man would want to continue with a date that started off with a woman sending him painfully down to the ground.
The look he gave her was sudden surprise; it flared sharply, too bright to be anything but real behind the placidity. Gabriel was certain that now standing - so long as he remained in one spot and his right hand remained on the cane - he would be steady with the same surety that was learning to get up and fall, get up and fall until he got it right in training before bullets flew. Certainty absorbed a little of the starburst of white heat skittering from knee through lower leg across the path of poorly-knit bone. “I don’t want you to go,” it was not precisely bewildered but the discordant note of someone certain they do not have all the cards in play necessary. “You just knocked me on my ass, kid. I get back up.”
He gambled. His left hand - weaker, less needed - shifted off the cane, the right tightening perceptibly. Gabriel’s hand was broad, the color of weak tea and warm sun, he reached for her with the slow progression of a movement both careful and telegraphed and settled palm along the ridge where collarbone met shoulder, the crest of his thumb very light. “I think we try again. Upright, this time.” He smiled down at her, mild amusement and banked warmth.
Her own expression went wary at his surprise and then shocked at the revelation that he wasn't going to run away. Her eyes narrowed, somehow tentative and suspicious at the same time. "The last man I did anything like that to couldn't get away from me fast enough," she said. Because obviously there was something not quite right about a man that would stay after getting knocked to the ground for doing nothing more than kissing his date’s cheek.
She tracked the movement of his hand with her eyes, dark blue gaze sharp on it. She knew he was going to touch her, and forced herself to stay, to not run, to allow the light contact that had nothing to do with helping him up or keeping him steady on his feet. Her pulse jumped, but she kept her breath even, though there was a tension to the muscles of her shoulders that she couldn't completely chase away. When she tried to speak, it required a frown and a soft clearing of her throat before the words would come. "What-- what are we trying now?" It came out more hesitant than she maybe wanted, but at least there was no tremor to the words.
Gabe’s thumb was notched too close to pulse-path not to have noticed the hummingbird flitter of heartbeat beneath his hand but his eyes were very steady all the same, the quiet observation of the skitter of her gaze and the refusal to give all that nervousness house-room. The cane was wedged now securely enough that color bled back into the whitened knuckles of his right hand. “We’re trying - I’m trying,” Gabe corrected himself and his voice was both mild and pleasant, as polite as if dust didn’t cling to the slope of his shoulder and his forearm, as if the shirt wasn’t rumpled far more than it had been and the curl of something in his voice could have been either held-back care or pain or something far more interesting, “To kiss you. You mind not knocking me over this time?” His smile lifted, the corners of his eyes crinkled, and before she could disagree - before she could use that hand once again - he’d lowered his head.
His mouth was warm, the taste of that coffee and of mint beneath it and faintly smoky. It was a chaste kind of kiss, suited to sidewalks and oddly-balanced men and the glassy delicacy of the woman herself. Close up he was the rasp of bristled cheek and the deliberate care and brevity of control both established and taken hold of. “The last man you did that to,” Gabriel said, as though he had decided something very serious, “Didn’t know what he was missing.”
Laura was nothing but tension and hard lines along with her racing pulse, but she didn’t pull away, not even when his hand slipped close enough to easily choke her. She held her ground because of that deeply-buried part that wanted. She returned the smile that came along with his questions, mouth open to whisper “I’ll try not to”, but those words were lost and forgotten at the press of his mouth against hers. It startled her even though she knew it was coming, and she brought one hand up to wrap around his forearm. It was the one holding himself steady, but all she did was hold on, fingers tight but not painful, her other hand pressed against the theater’s outer wall.
The kiss was brief, but it was enough for her to try to process, and though she kept her hand around his arm, she didn’t follow when he pulled away. Her lips pressed together, chasing the sensation, and she sighed quiet and slow. “To be fair,” she finally replied, looking vaguely dazed and distracted, “I did punch him in the face.”
The tan bled away to nothing beneath the press of her fingers but Gabriel did not seem overly concerned with the grip she had on him. The shirt had been folded over at the cuffs, pushed up to the elbows, exposing a smattering of silvering hair and a dull, rather brutal looking scar running the length of his left forearm, on the outside of the wrist to the elbow. His eyes were still creased; he looked at her as though he were both pleased and amused and trying very hard not to be too much of the latter - it was not alike Gabriel to be visibly anything, were he not intentionally so, the deliberate lowering until it was an acceptable threshold for a woman who he did not doubt had a sizeably powerful right hook.
“Please avoid doing so,” he said very gravely and the smile reached up to dimples. “If you feel like giving me my arm back, we might make it all the way in.” His hand was resting lightly in the air above her shoulder presently, his thumb pressed briefly at the corner of her mouth and then he was finding tickets once again in his pocket and the neat presentation of them to her with a gallantry exceptionally deliberate.
She caught the amusement even though he was trying to hide it, and it was enough to make her smile and wrinkle her nose at him. “Don’t laugh. Or I will punch you. Without warning. And it’s been a while, but I’m pretty sure I broke his nose. It crunched like I did, at least.” And no comment as to how she knew how a nose crunched when broken. She slowly let his arm go though, a finger at a time, as if it took care and focus to undo her fingers.
The tickets were slipped from his fingers with an easy gesture and an almost-haughty tip of her chin. The smile on her face was almost a smirk, even though hidden back behind it was still a helping of nerves that she couldn’t quite chase away. In fact... “You said there’s drinks? I might be less punchy if there’s drinks...”
The theater was small but it was well-kept. It was shabby in a way that looked as if it had been designed with shabby in mind, faded carpet turned a dull rose and the footfalls of those passing through muffled down to nothing. The window outside displayed a list of movies that were predominantly either old or clearly in another language and those going in and out was a syrup-slow trickle. There was no neon-lit list of overpriced popcorn and drinks but a small and surprisingly busy bar, with a line where a concession stand ought to have been, and a series of plain doors rather than any kind of ceremony about the number of screens. Gabriel ignored those who moved out of deference to the cane and to the man who was limping rather more significantly now. He wanted very much to drink, not because of anything to do with punchiness or nerves but rather the knowledge of exactly how blunt of an edge a beer could put on the knee and when the line shifted at the bar, he transferred one hand to the solid edge of it with some measure of relief kept between he and the barman and the cane went briefly slack. It was evident, from the unthinking way he passed hers across first, that he was well used to female company but whether that was the wife - or the apparent series of women the wife had accused him of - remained unclear.
He was quiet ease and relaxed smile but Gabriel was thinking as if set a particularly hard problem; he looked at Laura with the evident appreciation that was all blond good looks and enjoyment of them but a particular edge to his gaze that was a man set a particular conundrum, all pieces at odds and fighting one another for sense. The woman could break a nose - of that, Gabriel had no doubt, his knee throbbed meaningfully- but her pulse leapt like fear when approached. He was grateful in no small part for the dim lights as they took seats that were the much of the same, worn velvet benches and low - it meant he could look without it being quite so noticeable.
Laura took the beer from him with ease and reached to take the other as well, raising an eyebrow at him as a dare to contradict her. She understood self-sufficience, even in the face of injury, but she also understood that she’d just put him on the ground, and that couldn’t have been any sort of fun for him. She carried everything just as far as their seats and then slipped the glasses into the holders in the arm-rests (after taking a healthy drink of her own). Uncertain of how exactly he wanted to sit, she hesitated for a moment before simply easing herself down.
“You realize I can feel you looking, right?” It was the first thing she’d said in several minutes, after sitting and watching the pre-movie information on the screen. Simple things due to the type of theater it was, and none of the high-production ads that were so common in the larger chain theaters. She turned her head to meet his gaze, the previous fear pushed back again (deliberately - a few swallows of beer wasn’t enough to enforce a change).
A laugh, generous and loud; Gabriel didn’t appear to care if anyone turned to look, he was careless with it in a way that said either he was used to being looked at (which was, in some ways true: a man of height and breadth couldn’t help calling attention to himself) or he simply didn’t give a damn. It was very male, and the smile slid on up like the problem had if not resolved itself, than unknotted a corner, enough to pull free a ragged end. The beer was good, yeasty-thick across his tongue and it promised to deal with the stubborn fire in the knee if not quickly, then at least with fervor.
“We’re not looking at one another, Blossom?” Gabriel straightened, he looked ahead at the screen very deliberately, like a schoolboy stood corrected. “Dates have changed since my day. Thought they were all about looking.” The dimples darted, wickedly.
His laughter coaxed out a full smile of her own, and she shook her head. “One, I haven’t been on an actual, full date in years, so I wouldn’t know if they’ve changed. Two, there’s looking and then there’s looking. And you were looking.” She poked at his arm to pull his attention back away from the screen, a smile still around the corners of her lips, but her eyes gone serious. “If you’re looking for something, you can just try to ask. I might not answer you, but I figure I at least owe you an asking.”
Gabriel’s attention once drawn was sober; the wrinkles smoothed like rumpled silk shaken out and he was steady brown eyes looking, sliding over the tip of her blond head down the slope of her throat, and the scar there and whilst attention lingered it was both open and obvious - a question silent and perhaps in need of no particular answer. A beat. An open smile, sunshine bleeding back out, the carelessness of a grin. “I haven’t been on a date in over a decade, Blossom, but I’m certain looking’s allowed. Even encouraged.” He lifted his beer to his lips, and his eyes danced behind it, and he looked down at her hand on his arm and reached for it, a thoughtlessly easy gesture. It was strong brown fingers wrapped around hers and whilst it was largely reaction to being prodded like an especially benevolent sort of bear, he did not appear to consider leaving go. Rather, his fingers laced through hers.
The theater was the sort of empty that suggested that there were better movies to see or perhaps more popular ones; heads bobbed above the seats here and there and there was a steady theme of glasses of wine or beer in hand as the trickle of people who drifted in slowed, and then stopped as the heavy, velvet curtain dragged back and upward with a swirl of disturbed dust. “Am I supposed to be looking?” Gabe’s voice was quiet, it would no doubt, not quite carry to the people sat nearest - at least eight rows ahead.
Laura found, even with the gaze and smile and grin and the easy words between the two of them, that most of her attention was caught by his hand taking hers. His fingers were warm, strong, and it was a nice sort of change to the nothing she had grown used to. Her own hand felt foreign in his, not quite certain how it was supposed to curl or move in the hold of another’s, but after a moment of awkwardness, she managed to find a position that was comfortable. Hand in hand, and a leg tucked up underneath herself because the bench-style seat offered a little more room without the boundary of armrest between them.
Being able to talk, even softly, was a comforting sort of benefit to the emptiness of the theater. The dim lights weren’t the sort of masking that would come with a poorly lit bar, but something that offered warmth to the open space, making it more private, even with the other movie-goers. Even with the good atmosphere for discussion, she was quiet for a bit, searching for how to answer his question. “...You can look.” Tentative, the sort of tone that implied that not many would be allowed to look. Or allowed to ask anything. Looking and asking seemed like prime invitations to find some reason to cut this short. But better now than down the road, after expectations had been raised. Even so, permission given.
Gabriel seemed not especially inclined toward cutting it short. The look - scant glance that skimmed over so much tense female - was enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes. He seemed primarily focused on the coordination of beer and woman and the now occupied hand (that appeared to be occupied for the foreseeable future). He was a man of exceptionally long angles when seated, the majority of which was leg; even without the stiff angularity of the cane it took a decent amount of time to arrange himself, and then the limbs that shared significant space with Laura herself. He was broad shoulders settled back against the faded softness of the chair and the particular comfortable sigh of a man at once at peace and also unlikely to move at any point in the near future.
The movie itself began in the next minute. It became rapidly apparent that whilst it was old, it was mediocre; it was black and white but it was neither Katherine Hepburn or her contemporary but someone a great deal less renowned and for obvious reasons. The plot was convoluted but simply so, and it hinged from the very beginning on the silliest of devices. Gabriel gave it the same appreciation he would any movie he had dragged someone else to see, with the understanding that perhaps he simply did not understand it, or the appeal was missing to him but would, if he paid attention, become apparent.
Guilt started to seep into Laura’s mind as she started watching the film. She usually enjoyed movies, but this one just wasn’t grabbing her attention. Oh, it was alright, but she was still fighting off nerves and overly focused on the way Gabe’s hand wrapped around hers and the way they were sharing space in a way she usually avoided. The nearness of him filled the space with the way he smelled, and for the first time in a very long time, she actually enjoyed sitting close to a man. Even with her beer reaching the bottom of the glass a little too quickly, she didn’t quite have enough courage to do anything more than sit close and hold his hand.
The movie continued to move along at its moderate pace, and she sighed and shifted a bit, surprised when her knee came up against his in the dark, but after a tense moment of deliberation, she simply forced herself to relax and left it there. At a particular lull in the plot, she leaned over and, with a smirk that was obvious even in the dark, whispered: “I think you were right about this film needing beer to make it good.”
Gabriel was not a man overly given to thought on shared spaces. There were minutes crammed together with someone that seemed like lifetimes, or the extreme nothing that was hip to hip and thigh to thigh with someone who was for you in that moment, as alike a tool or a weapon, someone supremely unsexual because they were a necessary extension of yourself. There was the chartered, dangerous territory of a woman’s back to you in bed, the smooth, white line of it a threat as to what would be if she were reached for, and the sudden, sleepy cession of battle lines previously drawn. When Laura’s knee shifted against his, he made room with the thoughtless comfort in his own sprawl. When she shifted more than once, he made more room. He was, if not entirely entertained by the movie, then at least absorbed, but in the dark the glint of his teeth was a passing thing.
“Hey now, don’t go talking trash about my girl...” Gabe squinted at the screen, fumbled for a name, came up blank and improvised, “...Betty. Wonderful actress. Subtle.” The warmth of his breath was very close to her cheek; he had turned his head to look at her.
His turn brought his smile closer to her in the dark than she’d anticipated, and for a second, she moved back. An automatic motion to find a space that somehow meant safety. The space lasted only a moment, though, and then she leaned back in. It could have been blamed on needing to whisper, on not wanting to disturb their fellow movie-goers. And if it was brought to attention, that was exactly what she would blame it on. “I don’t think that’s actually her name,” she said with another soft smile. She was close enough that her hair slipped forward and brushed against his shoulder, nearly imperceptible through the fabric of his shirt.
“Absolutely is,” Gabriel sounded certain. He sounded inarguably so, the kind of lie that slid through fingers like silk, softly impossible to hold onto. “Betty. Born...” another squint, a guess, “Nineteen twenty.”
Her smile moved suddenly into a laugh, and beyond that a snort and swift movement of her head as she tried to smother the sound that wanted to escape. Her free hand had come up to cover her mouth, trying to keep the sounds of her amusement between the two of them, and as she grinned she used it to nudge his arm. “You are so full of shit,” she whispered. “You have no idea who she is, do you?”
“I like Betty,” and the arm she’d nudged Gabriel slid out of the space between them, pushed back some of the escaped hair and tucked it back behind her ear. “I’ve seen all her movies. If you’re not informed, Blossom,” the voice-in-the-dark was woeful, the teacher whose instruction was ignored, “I can only educate you.”
There was, again, the seconds passing flicker of tension at the touch, but her eyes were warm on him in the dark even as the slide of his fingers through her hair, against the shell of her ear, made her shiver. She hoped that it wasn’t too obvious, but in the dark, with nothing else to capture their attention other than the movie and each other, she didn’t hold out much hope. Especially not with the way that Gabe had been so quick to notice other things in the short time she’d known him. “I’m going to start calling you Betty,” she murmured, trying to cover up her reactions. “See how much you like her then.”
Training taught many things. Gabriel’s expression betrayed nothing at the catch in breath, the skim-ripple of her skin as his fingertips caught the place behind her ear, smoothed loose strands back into place. The smile was all things seen, noticed, and neatly side-stepped laid out in front of the woman herself, for perusal and observation; in a theater devoted to watching silver screen, they were two overtly and overly concerned in what observations were made about themselves. “Fair,” Gabriel said and there wasn’t reaction to hide, in warm brown eyes and the kind of look to them that said he didn’t mind a damn, “You call me what you like,” a pause, deliberate. “Laura.”
The touch behind her ear was a surprise; it was a place so vulnerable that it made her want to shy away even as her body tried to lean into it. She was almost about to take him to task for it, for pushing past a boundary that she wasn’t certain she was quite ready to let go of, but then the dark rumble of his voice was adding to the mix, and all she could do was blink at him when he continued. Since they’d met, he’d said her name so infrequently that it was strange to hear it from his mouth, especially slipped so easily into their whispered banter. The smile had eased from her face, replaced by something quieter and yet more openly frank. And she didn’t pull away. “You fight way too dirty to be fair.”
“Dirty?” Gabriel rolled it over, gave it enough room to take root. There wasn’t a great deal to the woman who sat curved in against his side that wasn’t half-shadow, wasn’t flinch-or-she’ll-hit-you. His hand rested against the air just above her cheek, the warmth that spread like ink on paper; his fingers had drawn free of her hair, carding through so much blond. It was much as he’d expected it to be, smooth and cool as water. “What am I doing wrong?” They were back to mild, warmth smoothed over and made palatable for onlookers, even with the intimacy of almost-touch.
“Blossom, we start talking about fighting dirty, how about we start with what you did to my wrist?” His eyes were laughing, even if his voice was solemn.
To hear him roll the word around in his mouth like it was melting chocolate made her blink slowly at him, savor the sound of it. That in itself was dirty, though she wasn’t going to make the mistake of calling him on it again. She shook her head, and the soft skin of her cheek brushed his fingertips that hovered so close to her face. The contact was just light enough to be inviting, and she turned in toward it for just a second before pulling away again, certain that the flare of embarrassment she felt was clearly translated into a flush of her cheeks that (if the theater weren’t quite so dark) she would have had to blame on the beer. “You’re not doing anything wrong,” she replied, but viciously wanted to take it back at his next question.
“I told you, you startled me.” It was possibly the most unsatisfactory answer ever given.
Gabriel had sat in plenty of darkened theaters and paid attention to one woman rather than several. He had sat in the same theaters on off-nights with that one woman beside him and listened patiently to the deconstruction of a performance that did not seem so very different to the one she herself gave. Paying attention to the seat beside him rather than what lay behind the curtain - the show paid to see - was as usual for Gabe as the almost-contact was unusual, the catch of fingertips against peach-warmth of her cheek before she had moved once again. Gabriel smiled; it was a thing for lowered lights and theaters half-empty of people and he lowered his hand to his lap, the twist of his wrist that was all things put away.
“That’s one hell of a startle reflex,” he told Betty-whoever-she-was, currently throwing a plate at her husband on screen, and his fingers curled loose and warm against Laura’s palm. “You try killing them if they piss you off?”
Laura was silent when Gabe moved his hand away, and she looked at the screen, watching the movie pass along the silvered surface for long minutes before replying to him. Her response was quiet when it came: “No.” It was serious, perhaps moreso than it should have been, when the question was likely a joke. But she somehow couldn’t make herself be any more jovial about it. And she found that she couldn’t pull her gaze from the screen back to Gabe. The single touch had unsettled her, and even more than that, the way she’d momentarily wanted more. Knowing that she couldn’t have it, with Gabe’s hand pulled away, she sighed. And then, with the sort of recklessness she hadn’t had in years, she curved her hand around Gabe’s fingers and (after another hesitation), her shoulder leaned so-lightly against his.
A look darting from screen to the top of her blond head - oh, that ‘no’ was quiet and it was calm but it came with an intonation Gabriel neither expected nor entirely understood. He had been accused - once, maybe twice, of enjoying things that could not be understood and of prying them apart to see the why of it, entirely too much. Gabriel’s arm was a weight, the bulk of muscle discreet enough that it was not an indicator of anything but perhaps a man who took considerable care not to go to seed. It settled, whether against the back of her seat or the crest of her shoulders, destination debatable, but warm, and the adjustment fitted her shoulder neatly into the side of his chest. It looked - externally - like perhaps it was comfortable. Gabriel was looking at the screen once again, Betty was crying, celluloid-perfect tears.
“I think I need more beer,” he said quietly, side of his mouth, “Or we’ve got to find a way to make this interesting.”
She closed her eyes with a sigh at the weight of the arm along her shoulder, waiting for the tension and the inevitable flight response, but as if the weight was holding her down, the reaction never came. Maybe it was him or it was the beer, but with her eyes still closed, she leaned more into the solid curve of his chest. His words almost startled her again, as caught up in her thoughts as she was, and while she didn’t move away, she did look up, forgetting how close they would be when she did. She blinked once she did realize, gaze rounding his face as she tried to think of beer and interesting things. “...what?”
“Betty,” Gabe told her seriously, “Is about to walk out on that husband of hers. And what with her sister’s interest in that husband, it doesn’t bode well for the end of the movie.” His hand had curved over her shoulder, the effective blocking in of them both - he-and-she, one small collective unit within a theater scattered with those - Gabriel watched, interestedly, as one and then another, walked out either in search of popcorn and overpriced beverages or simply unsatisfied with poorly put together cinematic history from the forties. He looked down, instead, at Laura - at unfocused look back at him, vague in blue eyes, and he smiled (small. Privately).
“There’s something,” and gently, freeing his hand from hers and carding fingers into the hair at her temple, “I never tried.” There wasn’t much that lent itself to that kind of thing, social care and gloom, institution-ordinary instead of high school out of movies, from tv shows. By college, he’d gone to the kinds of movies that interested him, he’d sat watching in the dark, mostly alone. There’d been no need for anyone at all. “Heard it works well. Distraction, you know.” Serious, oh so serious, until with enough pause to let her run, find another pain-point, wrist or knee or anything else, he’d lowered head enough to kiss her.
Overwhelmed by sitting close, having his arm around her and his hand in her hair again, she tried to follow the conversation, but he’d lost her somewhere around Betty’s husband and sister. She should have known - her highschool career was filled with makeouts in the back of theaters, but she hadn’t had anything of the sort in over a decade. She was out of practice.
The lean was looming, so far into her space that she could barely breathe, but the clench of her stomach wasn’t fear - not the terror she sometimes felt, at least. The drop and twist was something entirely different, and by the time Gabe had leaned far enough, she’d tipped her own face up, meeting him half-way, pressing her mouth to his.
It was a slow thing, this time. Gabriel was the kind of man who gave the impression of methodical mindedness, a ponderous sort of creature that checked boxes and dotted I’s on forms. (He did, it was entirely accurate.) At leisure, seemingly with acres of time given over to exactly this - Betty and her plight were dismissed, declined into the grayscale from which they had begun - it was palm abutting cheek, the calm sweep of mouth over hers and the thoroughness of a kiss that suggested having thought about it considerably before doing so. He tasted of beer, and of the same vague suggestion of coffee; she fitted exactly into his side which made it a linear loop of fingers caught in her hair to the arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her whole scale into a kiss that was tongue and teeth and slow, slow enough to spark pleasurably up the spine, prickle like a high-schooler in the back row of a blockbuster. It was chaste - as chaste as a kiss that promised full exploration of what kisses might be could be - but it lingered, until it was something else, something that Gabriel allowed to taste like surprise and confusion and appreciation all at once. It was different; it was a woman less angular fitted into his side, a woman who smelled of clean-scrubbed soap rather than the faint smell of tea. It was ten years broken, in a kiss that slid past teeth and asked for things and something - somewhere - in the back of his head slipped.
There was too much of him. Too much arm around her shoulders and too much hand against her cheek. Too much of a man she had known for too short a period of time. And yet she didn’t pull away. Oh, there was the frantic part of her that was clamoring for an escape from the situation, willing to do anything and everything to get free, but something very female and very ignored had woken up and was demanding a continuation of the kiss and contact. It was slow, and deep, and so arrogantly male in a way she’d forgotten she loved. She ended up with her side pressed warm against him from shoulder to knee, the hint of female curve with the hidden wire of muscle underneath. It was rusty, her kiss, like she was trying to pull up the memory of just how to kiss, of how to make a man want to kiss her more. Because she suddenly, overwhelmingly, wanted to be kissed more.