Prisoners
Warm, big, soft bed and a wide open room. Gabriel thanks himself for the small luxury his own reputation has earned him. This place has room to pace, to be private and antisocial and free. No more bars, no more tests--for now. Just the sheer immense feeling of being alone, of feeling unafraid and strong. Of undisturbed sleep.
The bed doesn't creak as he shifts his weight, stretches out his arm just for the sake of feeling the sheets brush his skin. His eyes squeeze shut, willing himself to feel content with this. This room, this silence, this space--it's all he's ever wished for.
As a little boy there was never quiet. Red-tinged dreams and a few small scars remind him of this fact even when his own mind tries to bury it.
One prison after another, from home to a lab to a jail, then back to another lab here. Kait's miles and miles away now and he wishes he could taste her skin one more time, feel her body slick against his in some other place outside his imagination. Gabriel's muscles tense thinking of Kessler acting smug with his arm around her. Kessler hates him because Iris died before he could steal her away. Bastard steals everything from him and never gives anything back. Spreads his energy out to the populace like a disease, thinking that'll make up for everything he's done.
There's a generosity in this bunch here that manages not to come off as charity. Doesn't matter that they're all crazier than that guy he fed off in high school ended up being: he feels a kinship with them that borders on intimacy. All the others pushed him away even as they pulled him closer. Here, if any of them didn't like him, at least they'd show it. No pussying around about how this group feels, that's for damn sure.
Some of them look on him as some sort of a god--either because they admire his grip on reality, because he was able to run away from here, or because they know he could kill them in an instant if he tried. He's not sure which, doesn't care to think on it. But they leave him alone without him having to force the issue, and that's good enough. Gabriel doesn't need answers for everything.
A small sound outside the door, more like a rubbing than tapping. Frost's got a bigger lingerie collection than Frederick's and he has yet to see all of it, so if it turns out to be her maybe he'll let her stay. Sometimes it's easier to be alone with yourself with other people around. And even though she could know everything about him in a single touch, she never says anything. Never says, "Let's talk." There's no words with her, just a whole lotta sex, maybe some drugs if she hasn't used 'em all before she got there, and good music turned up loud enough to vibrate. They can have a good time, the two of them, if he doesn't put his mind to it.
But then the locked door clicks and swings open before Gabriel can make up his mind whether to answer or not, and that's not who it is at all. Renfrew slipping in, Renny with the nervous hands and Mac for a room mate. He shuts the door behind him and bolts it, eyes not looking away from the bed. He's scared, which is weird 'cause the crystal's supposed to stop all that. He's scared and his right eye's swelling up. There's a nice clear slice taken out of his cheek, fresh and glistening crimson.
He doesn't say anything, just stares, and Gabriel can tell he's afraid he'll make him leave. His dark skin blends in with the shadows on the wall so only his eyes stand out. They dart nervously to the other side of the room where the graffiti Jackal Mac made glows red in the moonlight. He's wearing cargo pants and nothing else but a big watch he probably stole off a businessman downtown. Long fingers scrabbling over one arm, over the dragon tattoo on his inner wrist.
Gabriel sits up in his bed, running his hand through his hair. Trying to think whether he should break the quiet to tell him to get out. Wondering whether that's what he wants to do at all.
Renny's like a little kid in a candy jar in this place--he's just here for the thrill, and sometimes Gabriel wonders whether the crystal has even changed him at all, inside. Sometimes the others have their off days, where you can tell they hate what they are and all the violence is just a way to escape it. But Renny's something different. He likes himself, loves that he'll never have to be like 99.9% of the rest of the world, that he can survive on plain smartness and theft just fine. Ain't nothing wrong with getting by the best way you can.
But he hates it here, even more than Gabriel does, if that's possible. Gabriel can tell even without reading his mind. He's trapped here because there's nowhere else to go where he can be himself and no one will call him a freak or lock him up. Gabriel knows because he's lived all of this already. He actually got out of this place once, after all. He's already discovered that there's no place else, even among his "own kind," where they'll just shut up and let him do his thing. 'S not like he ever hurt Kessler and his buddies. He doesn't know if he hurt Kait, but if he did he didn't mean to and it was all her fault anyway.
Renfrew getting more bold now, standing at the foot of the bed. He's strong, won't show how the wounds hurt him. He lets Mac slap him around a little because some times it's no fun to fight back, and not worth it to begin with, not when it means he'll have a warm body next to him when he wakes up in the morning. Gabriel's thinking he wouldn't fuck with Mac if you paid him a fortune, not after he'd seen how easy it was for that asshole to get out of control and kill without knowing it. Of course, he's one to talk, now that he thinks about it.
Gabriel moves over a fraction of an inch, just enough to let him know he's not stopping him. Renny grasping the edge of the blanket and twisting it in his hands. Busy, computer nerd hands are what they are, and Gabriel finds his eyes drawn to them again and again. Picturing them cracking into the FBI or even just sliding down his arm like they are right now...
Renny's quiet, intense, focused. Obviously has a lot of practice in all of this, which is what you'd expect for a kid who survived on the street. But...yeah, so there should be a lot less thinking here, a hard thing to get through to a guy who thinks all the time just to keep everyone else's thoughts out. And Gabriel doesn't want to know what Renfrew's thinking, 'cause if there's pity in it he'll have to make him go and all of a sudden he really, really doesn't want him to.
Both under the sheet now, Renny's long left arm draped loosely over Gabriel's chest, moving over his bicep, fingers skittering over collarbone and neck. Gabriel shifts again, feeling the air seem to get thicker as he grabs the back of Renfrew's head and pulls him down closer, teeth scraping on his chin before their mouths find each other.
The dark-skinned boy has a taste in his mouth like old pot smoke, something not entirely appealing but enough so that Gabriel presses in closer and lifts up one hand to remove Renny's glasses, blindingly reaching behind himself to set them on the nightstand. Leaves that hand free to roam over his chest, feel his heart fluttering under ribs that stand out. Scrapes a nail over one flat nipple, his mouth turning up a little at the stifled sound he gets in response.
Renny sucks on his tongue, desperately, eagerly, soon setting up a very familiar rhythm, even as his hands slide down to the waistband of Gabriel's shorts, giving one tug that pulls them down not all the way, but definitely far enough. Gabriel makes himself keep quiet and leashes his mind in, not wanting to merge minds this time because it makes everything slower and more...unusual. Draw this out long as possible, since tomorrow night he'll probably be back on a steady diet of Frost, which is okay except variety's always nice. But just because his mind's restrained doesn't mean he's gonna let the rest of him be.
He pulls his head back and makes their two bodies flip over so the shorter man's underneath him, Gabriel's hands resting on his shoulders as his tongue flicks out over Renny's Adam's apple. Gasping as fingers skitter down his spine like spiders. Gabriel licks over the tattoo he saw earlier, down the inside of the wrist then migrating straight from there to his cheek and the scar across it. He's careful to avoid the tender tissue around his eye, remembering that bruises only feel good when you're not trying to forget who made them.
Renny shudders, moans open-mouthed and before Gabriel can know what's going on he's got his hips in his hands and he's grinding up, slow and good and so right. Christ. Here's something he could never get from Frost, this slow burn while their cocks rub together and Renny's hands are still busy on the skin of his ass and his back and the tops of his legs...he can't even keep track but whatever the fuck he's doing he'd better not stop.
Gabriel growling low in his throat while he returns the grind, rotating his hips and biting on Renny's big lower lip. It's happening faster than he planned on but if it goes slower it might kill him and goddamn that was good, that thing he just did with his hand between Gabriel's legs and he wishes Kessler knew what he was doing, shithead, show him that he doesn't care that he took her away from him and piss him off because he ain't getting anything and he wouldn't know what to do if he got something like this anyway.
Slick and smooth between them now, slow, hard rhythm and tongues twisting around each other. More moans, though by now he's not paying attention to who's making them. It's an ache now, wanting this dark boy beneath him who's his own age but somehow seems so much younger. Nervous, frightened boy with a crazy skinhead monster for a bedmate and just wanting to get away from the prison of his regular life. And Gabriel can understand that, too, which is why he didn't make him go and why now he's almost chewing on his tongue, Renny squirming beneath him trying to pick up the pace.
Gabriel obliges with another twist of his hips, barely lifting himself in between thrusts, thinking maybe they should have gone further in case there wasn't a next time but it's too late for that now, and...fuck. Fuck, fuck he's close and he growls again, wondering whether Kait would care what he's doing and who really gives a shit in the end because she made her choice when she left him out in that barn and went in to the warmth with Kessler.
Renny getting frustrated and being the one to growl now, flipping them again, slipping one hand between them without breaking the rhythm and doing another thing with his long fingers. And Gabriel lets out this long drawn out sound and bucks up against Renny, gripping the small of his back so he's pressed tight against him the whole time.
"Yeah, man," Renny croaks out as he comes, fingers finally still on Gabriel's shoulders as he keeps moving, just a little. Just enough to make Gabriel let go, feel their come mixing on their bellies, feel that burn peak and then not so much fade as turn good and comforting.
Sound of their heavy breaths in the room, foreheads resting together and Renfrew's body limp on top of his. Nice in a way he doesn't get often, just laying here quiet and resting with someone else. No one telling him to let go or get up. It's not even light out yet and he wants Renny staying 'til the morning. He does.