open_flame | Who will forgive whom?

Current Location: Gray & Sons, Queens NY

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Who will forgive whom? - Tag graylikeme

What would happen if Liz's yearly distraction mission on the anniversary of the day she killed her family was to try to recruit a watchmaker from Queens to the BPRD?

Featuring the illustrious and amazing graylikeme in the role of Gabriel Gray.

I don’t need to check the calendar. I know what day it is. The worst day of the year. Everyone at the Bureau has been walking on eggshells like they do every year. Don’t mention it. Don’t upset her. Give her an easy mission to make her feel useful and better about herself.

Right.

I grab the file off my bed and read though it slowly. Queens….great. Still, it beats the hell out of sitting around here all day with my thoughts. I don’t want that, even though it’s what they don’t want as well. For once, the powers that be of the BPRD and I agree on something. If I don’t get out of this place and get my mind off what I did in Kansas, I will…do something I’ll regret. Or maybe...I wouldn’t regret it. Been thinking about it enough lately, but I never have the guts to even touch that big gun in the bottom of my dresser. It took a lot of cash and time to find a shop to sell me one without a background check. All that time and energy, and I can’t even work up the courage to pick it up, put it to my head and pull the trigger.

The plane ride is quick. At first I entertain the idea of it just dropping out of the sky, like planes do sometimes. That would make it easy. I wouldn’t even have to lift a finger to end my life. Of course, I don’t want to take the pilot with me, and I can hear Manning bitching in my head about how much it would cost to replace the plane. It’s the little one, not the big jet. I could have driven, but…I guess Manning could spare the puddle jumper before one of the cars. They never want to leave me ALL alone today. Guess they’re not so stupid after all. At least the pilot won’t be following me to Queens. Sad eyes work pretty well to get what you want sometimes.

I distract myself from the thoughts of the day my family died by reading the file over. Gabriel Gray, a watchmaker. He’s been talking to that Chandra Suresh. They say Suresh is a complete wack-job. Lovely. He probably another one of those that thinks we’re to be studied, researched. Like we’re some sort of wonderful evolution that means everything’s going to be OK. Sparkles and rainbows and sunshine and gifts from God and all that bullshit.

It’s not a gift. It’s a curse. We’re not special. We’re…freaks.

Still, this Gabriel has something new. Something the Bureau hasn’t seen before, and Manning wants him. Or wants his power on the payroll, more accurately. Intuitive aptitude. He can see how anything works. Would be a nice skill to have around the Bureau. Maybe he can fix that damn drippy shower finally.

I take a cab to the shop in Queens. Gray & Sons. It looks like an ordinary watch shop. But I know better than most that things are not always what they seem. I step out of the cab, the bits of the watch we had Red smash in an envelope. Like anyone could actually fix this, but we need a cover. Something to get him talking about what he could do and hopefully convince him to come with me back to BPRD. We could use some new blood that doesn’t get killed or quit in less than a month.

I put on that great fake smile I’ve perfected and push the door to the shop open. “Hello?” It looks spotless, like my room. A place for everything and everything in its place. The gently ticking of the array of clocks on the wall is almost soothing, like a meditation or a song. Maybe I should get a clock.

“Mr. Gray?” I move a little farther back in the shop. He’s supposed to be here. Maybe be went out for lunch or something? “Come out come out where ever you are.”

I throw caution to the wind and push back to the rear of the shop. Hopefully he won’t mind that I…

FUCK! My hand is up with a small fireball in an instant, a flick of my wrist spinning it towards the rope tied around the mans neck. He hits the ground with loud thud as I drop the envelope and rush over to him, grabbing his head to make him look at me as he gasps from air. The rope is still circling his neck, those eyes filled with an all to familiar look of pain and regret. We’re both pulling at it, trying to get his airflow back to him. A rope? Never thought of trying it that way. I wonder if it hurts less than a bullet. If the rope was a little longer your neck would probably just snap before you even had time to suffocate..

Do your job, Lizzie!

“ Are you alright?” I try not to sound panicked myself. This is NOT what this was supposed to be. Who the FUCK sends a suicidal girl to go talk to a suicidal man and offer him a fucking job? Fucking Manning! He could maybe have them do a tiny bit more research. We know the guy likes tea, but we didn’t know he wanted to off himself?

He’s gasping for air, looking at me like I’m some kind of devil…or angel. “Hey, come on. Say something.” What’s he thinking? God I wish Abe was here.

His eyes gloss over with wetness, his face twisted up in pain as he leans in closer to me. I don’t know what to do or say or even think. Does he want…a hug? Would a hug even help? Hugs are supposed to help right?

“Forgive me.” He wheezes as I pull him close to my chest, without really meaning to.

Forgive him? For what?

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I look away from her, shaking my head. "It can. It... it is." I don't want to be thinking about Brian, but I haven't been able to think about anything else since it happened. "It's not true that everything is forgivable." What happened flashes by my inner eye again, the thoughts that went through my head, that Brian was so undeserving of the wonderful gift he was carrying. He'd asked me to make it go away and I had. And for what. What did I have to show for it?

I'm still having difficulties with breathing properly, though that isn't important. "A man had something I wanted and I took it at a terrible price." I chew on the inside of my cheek, I know that I can't tell her exactly what happened or why I tried and failed to kill myself. It's not normal. No one normal does what you do. Or would ever consider it.

I glance over at her briefly. She seems concerned, but she's a stranger. Then again, just about everyone are strangers. I don't know anyone at all apart from my mom and she wouldn't miss me at all for a while, at least.

It could have been days before anyone had even found me.

What did he do? I almost want to ask, but I know it must be bad since he's got rope burns on his neck, and I hate it when people ask me about what I did that was so bad. "It was bad." Is all I ever say. It's in my file, if people wanted to see it they could. Trouble with him is, there's nothing in his file about a big bad truth. He's not possessed, and he sure as hell isn't evil.There is no 'by the book' for a situation like this. I'm not really sure how the Bureau would want me to proceed in this case.

What do I want to do?

"We've all done horrible shit. People are...bad. We do bad things. Terrible horrible things, it's like it's... human nature." The fact that it's very hypocritical for me to be saying this to him is NOT lost on me, thank you. "What the hell is doing THIS.." I still have the rope in my hand and I hold it up for him to see. "...going to do to fix whatever you did? It won't. It...can't. I'm sorry but...the world needs you. You're important." Every life is...every one I've ended...and every one I try to save. I can't explain it to him when he's like this, can I? Throw that story on top of what he's going though now? Not the best idea.

I glance from the rope and to her, processing what she's saying. People are bad, I know that. I also know know what happens to bad people and by all normal laws, I should be dead now, locked away somewhere in Hell. I reach out, taking the rope myself, looking at the end of it in wonder. Something did happen to it, but I can't speculate too much about what it could have been. All of my theories sound far fetched.

"Important. You think I'm important?" The smallest chuckle is pulled out of me. Chandra thought I was special and I'd wanted to believe it, all the way up to the point where he betrayed me, dropped me because he thought that I was nothing, not even slightly worth his time.

Maybe it stung extra because I'd almost felt that we were family, that he was almost a father to me.

"I'm..." I shake my head. "concerned that you might be disappointed then. But you saved me, so I guess that makes you responsible for my life now. I read that... somewhere." I push my glasses up, I'm only joking. Weak joke.

"Trust me, I'm used to disappointment, and I don't think you will be." I watch him twist the rope as he looks at it curiously I'm fighting the urge to reach out and pull it from his hands. Maybe he doesn't know what burnt rope looks like. I can hope, right?

"You sure you want that?" I laugh a bit myself. "I mean, you don't even know my name. How do you know I'm the right person to be responsible for you?" I sigh and roll my head back. "I can't even take care of myself most of the time." I smile weakly before I hold out my hand to him.

"I'm Liz, by the way."

I put the rope down and take her hand, squeezing it lightly. Her hand is small and warm in mine. "Liz... that's a pretty name... um, I'm Gabriel." I don't know anything about her, but she was here at exactly the right time. Or maybe the wrong time, depending on the point of view.

"And I know what you mean, but... you're not a bad person, I know what I see. You're sitting here on the floor with me, getting your dress dirty, scuffing your shoes." There's a small smile on my face, but I'm not sure why. "You appear out of nowhere, like... an angel."

I know it's lame the moment I say it, but I'm hoping she won't take offense at any rate.

"Liz isn't such a great name. Sixty percent of the women in the world are named Liz." I'm not used to holding peoples hands, especially not today. It's comforting. Red used to try and offer me some comfort when I was a kid, but now...guess I'm too old for that or something.

"I don't really even like dresses very much. I just needed to wear one for my job today" I'm smiling too. I was not expecting to smile today.

"And it...wasn't out of nowhere." I drop my head a bit, knowing I know have to get to the meat of the reason I'm here. Why is it suddenly so hard? "I had a specific reason for coming to see you today."

"A more specific reason than watch repair?" My breathing is mostly right now, though I know I'm going to be wearing the bruise around my neck for a while after this. Or for a while until it might be too much for me again to be thinking about.. about things I'm refusing to let myself linger on now. "There's hardly any other reason to come here..."

And why does this remind me of when Chandra entered my store? He had a specific reason too, he wasn't here about his watch, he was here because... "Does it have to do with me? You wanted to talk to me?"

That's it, isn't it? I'm willing to bet at it, just as I knew I'd guessed right with Chandra.

"What is it about, Liz?" I'm curious, wanting to focus on that rather than the reason why we're sitting on the floor.

"I don't have a broken watch, no." I shrug and reach across the floor to the envelope I dropped when I got here. "Well, I do but...it's not really fixable. The guy who broke it doesn't know his own strength sometimes." I shake the envelope so the pieces inside rattle around before I set it next to him.

"Why I'm here does have to do with you though." I speak slowly, remembering what Trevor Broom told me the day he took me to the BPRD. "You're unique. I'm sure you're aware of it, Gabriel." I pause for far too long before I continue. "I work for an organization that to put it simply, focuses on the unique. In fact. what most people call 'unique' isn't all that unique to us."

I let out a sigh and try to find the right words. The usual script won't work, not with him. "Are you happy, Gabriel? Are you happy with what you do here, or do you ever think that maybe you're meant to do something...special?

It really is Chandra all over again. I bite my lip, shaking my head a little. I tried to kill myself, how happy can she think that I am? "I... I wasn't happy with what I was doing here, I was bored, it was all too easy. And then this man came to see me, he told me that I was special too." I pull myself up to my feet, leaning against the counter, my hands against the side of it.

"And... things got worse after that, Liz. So much worse. I don't.. I don't want to be special. I don't want any of this, it's horrible, it's..." I hug myself, mostly to stop talking or for comfort or I don't know what. "If I could tear whatever it is that makes me this way out, I'd do it. I really would."

It made me kill someone. It made me get to this point and whatever organization she's a part of... how can it be any good for me?

He's bringing tears to my eyes. Granted that's not a hard thing to do today, but even if I was at my strongest, it would still break my heart. "I don't think any of us want what we can do. But there's nothing we can do to make it go away. I'm sorry. I wish there was but, it's just the way we are. " I say it softly before really thinking about it. Guess the cat's out of the bag now. Sort of. Maybe he won't put two and two together?

I feel like I shouldn't even mention why I came here in the first place. I feel like it will only overwhelm him and make it worse. 'You're clearly depressed and hating your ability and your life right now. That sucks and all, but as long as I'm here, do you want to come work for a super secret branch of the FBI? The kitchen makes great pancakes.'

Yeah, that had bad idea written all over it.

"What happened?" I reach out and wrap my hand around one of the arms he has holding himself as I sit up on my knees. I'm almost afraid to ask. No, I am afraid to ask. "Maybe I can help you. I'm not a shrink or anything, but I understand what it's like to not like...what you are."

It's just the way we are. We? She did say we, which means that she's special too, in some way. My stomach lurchs and I almost think I'm going to be sick, right here and now. I shouldn't be around people like her, I couldn't control myself with Brian, I'm dangerous and I know it.

I look at her, catching how sympathetic she is and how she's thinking that might help to talk about it. How can that help? "So, you don't like being special? You'd want to get rid of it?"

I want to get rid of what I have too, but there's this part of me that tries to tell me that she's unworthy of whatever she has for even suggesting not liking it. I'm trying not to listen to that, I know where that road leads already.

"I mean... have you tried? Is there really nothing you can do at all? Because I don't know how to deal with what I have, it's stronger than I am."

I swallow hard and bite my lip. He was going to find out eventually. Especially if I ever worked up the guts to offer him that job. "Sometimes, I hate it." I say softly. I slowly pull my hand away and let my fire go up, just a little. "I can handle the little stuff, but...anything more than that it tends to get out of control." I watch him watching me, not sure what he's thinking. He's not really scared, but I really didn't expect him to be. I have no idea what he's thinking.

"I did try to get rid of it. It almost killed me. But, someone saved me." I sigh and remember how good it felt to be rid of it, even after I got sick, it was still such a relief to have my fire gone. Someday's, I wish Hellboy hadn't found a way to get it back. Days like...today.

I let my hand go out and reach for his again. My hand is still warm. Maybe too warm. "Gabriel, we...I know about your power. It was hard to catch, but we have better resource than one geneticist has. The people I work for have been dealing with this sort of thing a LOT longer than Chandra Suresh has, far fetched as it sounds." I sit up on my knees and look him in the eyes.

"They're calling it 'Intuitive Aptitude.' Basically it means you can understand things better than...anyone really. You don't even have to learn something, you just know." I almost want to show him the file BPRD made up for him, but I know that's creepy. I hate looking at my own file. It makes me feel like a freak.

"But...it's not dangerous or anything. We've never seen anything like it. We don't even fully understand it based on Suresh's research." I smile and squeeze his hand lightly. "If you come with me, they can help you figure it out. You don't have to be alone." I'm fighting back tears. It's the same thing Trevor Broom said to me the day the BPRD took me in. 'You don't have to be alone. There are others like you.' It was small comfort to me at the time. I only hope it's more comfort to Gabriel.

(Bump us, please)

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Who will forgive whom? - Tag graylikeme

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