And then Gabe is kissing him, his mouth on Matthew’s, plush and insistent, and Matthew can’t help but chase those lips as Gabe pulls back, and he feels Gabe smile against him, and Matthew’s hands find their way to Gabe’s hair, tugging at the impossibly soft strands there. Matthew has never kissed someone like this, has never expected to, but Gabe guides him through it, teasing Matthew’s mouth open, and Matthew is lost to it, his tongue meeting Gabe’s, some strange dance which makes him want more, more, more, a high he never wants to come down from. Gabe guides him down to lay flat on the bed, and Matthew lets his body go pliant as Gabe moves on top of him, his hips aligning with Matthew’s, his elbows bearing his weight. Matthew pulls away to breathe, before leaning up to capture Gabe’s lips again, lips which were cold, but have been warmed by Matthew’s own. Matthew can feel his body responding, the rush of blood southwards, and can feel Gabe’s body reacting in the same way, hard against Matthew’s thigh, and Matthew doesn’t know what to do now, has never gone this far with anyone, but then Gabe grinds his hips down and the friction makes Matthew whine, and buck back up against him, and the rest is led by instinct, two bodies moving as one, pleasure sparking between them, building and building, until – *
Matthew lays with his head on Gabe’s chest, beating out the rhythm of a heartbeat with his fingers against the cool skin. He has a million questions, a million other half-formed thoughts that he wants to reach for and try to explain. His eyes move down to Gabe’s stomach, to where, rightfully, a wound should be from where Matthew had shot him just that morning. Instead, there is just pale skin, smooth and unblemished.
“Does it hurt?” Matthew asks, and Gabe shifts slightly, running his hand idly through Matthew’s hair, twirling the ends with his fingers.
“Does what hurt?”
“Where I shot you,” Matthew likes when Gabe talks, the rumble of his voice deep against his ear.
Gabe shakes his head.
“It doesn’t hurt,” he says. “Being shot – I’ll never get used to that. I actively resent being shot. But now? It’s fine. And I think you’ve made up for it.”
“You need – blood, though, right?” Matthew probes, not wanting an answer but needing one anyway.
Gabe’s hand tightens slightly in his hair, before releasing.
“Matty – ”
“Does it hurt when you bite someone?” Matthew asks, pushing the conversation forwards.
Gabe is silent for a moment before replying.
“Yeah, yeah it does.”
“But Aubrey lets you do it anyway,” Matthew pauses. “Will you – I don’t – I don’t want you to feed off of her. Not for something I did.”
“Matty – ” Gabe repeats, his voice a warning now.
“No, Gabe. Listen. I don’t understand your world. I don’t understand this. That time has power over me that I can’t control. That there are people in the world who live forever. That to you I’m nothing, insignificant, and how I must look to you with you knowing that. That you could kill me before I even blinked, and yet you don’t. That I grew up and your kind were the monsters I was warned about. That – that I met you today and I – look, my life isn’t this. I don’t make decisions like this. I don’t – god. I don’t feel the way I do about people like I do about you, ever. And that terrifies me. And it’s not a debt I owe you, but it is something I can spare Aubrey. And she said you never, ever would. Bite me, I mean. But I’m hoping she was wrong. Because I don’t want to imagine you with her. Because my gut is telling me that you’re mine. And that is selfish and short-sighted and I can’t reconcile it with what I knew before today, but it’s true. So let me do this for you. Please.”
Gabe reaches to tilt Matthew’s head up awkwardly so he can look him in the eye. For a moment, Matthew thinks he’ll accept, that the next sensation will be white hot pain and he wants to close his eyes in preparation but all he can do is look at Gabe as Gabe looks at him.
“Never in a million years, Matty. No matter what time is tellin’ you. No matter what you feel you have to do. I will never see your blood spilt for as long as there’s life – or some facsimile of it – in these bones of mine. I don’t want this – didn’t want this, but the second I met you, I knew it was game over. That’s the problem with time, it happens, whether you want it to or not. You can try to fight it, but it always wins. And I know I could never hurt you. Never see you get hurt. And that feeling is stronger than time. Stronger than anything. You called me yours – well I’m callin’ you mine.”
Matthew shivers at Gabe’s voice on the last word. It feels dizzying and powerful all at once.
“But Aubrey – ” he tries.
“I’m not going to bite Aubrey. I’m over two hundred years old, I can survive being shot. I’ll be sluggish for a few days. That’s all. I’ve got nothing but time. I’ll be okay. But more importantly, so will you. Look at you, skin and bone and beating heart. You’re like porcelain, Matty. Fragile, but beautiful with it. So let me have this. Let me protect you. You owe nothin’ to nobody, okay? Just – let’s be, just for now. For a moment. Let’s just be. And we’ll worry about the future when it comes. Just you and me, now, Matty, until time tips us forward again.”
“How will we know when that’s happened?”
“Time,” Gabe says, and grins softly, “is rarely subtle.”
END OF PART TWO
PART THREE
Sofia is missing. This is the one salient thought running through Gabe’s brain as he tugs on his clothes, hopping around trying to get his legs into twisted jeans at the same time as pulling a t-shirt over his head. Matthew is watching him, the blanket covering his naked form, and Gabe knows Matthew wants to help, but there’s nothing anyone can do, because Sofia is missing and Gabe needs to find her.
Once he’s half way decently dressed, he launches out of the room and down to the basement, where Nathan and Aubrey are watching security tapes of the perimeter, looping over the same piece of footage until Gabe can see the glitch where the footage shifts slightly and overwrites what should have been there. They’ve been hacked, the rapid cycling of the dome’s systems earlier a distraction for Nathan whilst greasy fingers wormed their way into the base’s servers. It’s so obvious, and they’d have known about it without question if Aubrey had been at peak performance. As it is, she looks ill and tired, leaning heavily on the desk in front of her, her eyes barely open. Nathan is chattering at ninety miles a minute, cursing himself, cursing the dome, cursing gods Gabe has never even heard of.
A warm hand on his shoulder and Gabe turns to look down into Matthew’s eyes. Matthew offers up a soft smile, comfort, and for a second Gabe calms, before mentally berating himself and turning his back on Matthew and staring blankly again at the monitors in front of him.
They have a rough time stamp for when Sofia left. And she did leave, there’s no way she could have been taken. Gabe has told her a thousand times to never leave the base, but she’d left it yesterday to meet him, and he thinks, in her own way, it’s a form of rebellion. If he was infinitely four years old, he’d begin to question things too. He just wishes he’d been firmer, explained the dangers, but how could she possibly understand the evils waiting to snatch her up?
But dammit, if he could go back in time, he would put the fear of god into her. Terrify her into never leaving.
As it is though, she is missing, has been missing for several hours, whilst Matthew mouthed at Gabe’s skin, whilst they slept entangled, Matthew warm and Gabe oh so cold, she’d been gone, and more than that, somebody wanted her to stay gone.
He shivers, and his metal arm shivers with him, the soft click click of metal plates reshaping alerting Aubrey, and she looks up at him, takes in the sight of him. He’s feeling the after effects of healing that gunshot wound now, feeling slower, tired, the arm a little heavier than usual. It’s far from ideal, especially if he’s going to have to retrieve Sofia safely. This isn’t his first rodeo, but time is warning him deep in his gut that loss is creeping up
on him, and whilst it won’t reveal a name, it offers a certainty that terrifies him. He reaches back and finds Matthew’s hand, lacing their fingers together. If Matthew questions it, he doesn’t say anything.
“You need to eat, Gabriel,” Aubrey says, her voice little more than a murmur as she pushes her fist against her temple.
“I’m fine,” he argues, and Matthew’s grip tightens on his own. He really doesn’t have time for an argument right now. He knows he needs blood, but he’s not willing to feed off of Matthew, and he knows Matthew won’t accept an alternative.
“Gabriel,” Aubrey sighs heavily, her eyelids drooping as she fights to keep her eyes open against the pain inside her head, “I really think, and I do not mean to cause discord, but I don’t think you’re going to have another chance to feed from me. Believe me when I say I understand your reluctance, but Sofia has been taken and you are swaying backwards and forwards like you’re seasick.”
“Gabe – ” Matthew begins, but Aubrey shoots him a glare and he quietens down.
“Now isn’t the time for petty jealousies. If we get Sofia back, you can fight like cats and dogs over it all and I will stand idle as you do so. But right now, Gabriel needs to feed from me. And then he needs to think of a plan. Because the people who have taken Sofia are evil, beyond measure, and every second that they have her is a second I don’t want to think about. You grew up cossetted in the dome walls, starving, certainly, but untouched by the wars that led to New Manhattan’s very existence. You have no context for this fight. So please, stop acting like a spoilt child and let Gabriel do this.”
Every word seems to hurt her, forced out by willpower alone. Matthew’s grip on Gabe’s hand tightens again, squeezes, and Gabe squeezes back, before dropping Matthew’s hand, letting it fall.
Sofia needs him and as the world swims before him, he knows he cannot save her as he is. So he makes a decision.
He helps Aubrey to her feet, and they lean on each other as they make their way out of the room, looking for privacy.
He does not look back, does not see the look of hurt on Matthew’s face, or the way he becomes slightly smaller, like a flower without sunshine.
He imagines it all though, perfectly.
It changes nothing. Sofia is the closest thing he’ll ever have to a daughter, an innocent he has protected for centuries. He has known Matthew for a day, and Matthew, beautiful and full of fight though he is, is only human, he can’t begin to understand.
Aubrey guides them to the archive room, and Gabe pushes open the door.
*
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Aubrey says as she sits down heavily. “Oh, come on Gabriel,” she says as he huffs out a sigh, “grow a sense of humour, I’m dying.”
“You’re not dyin’, Aubrey,” Gabe says softly. He drags a chair across the room and sits down beside her, stroking a hand up and down her upper arm. She leans into his touch and closes her eyes.
“This feels like dying,” she murmurs, almost too soft to catch.
“You’re going to be okay,” Gabe says, not really believing his own words. It doesn’t feel like anything is going to be okay. Time is pressing in on him and the sense of loss is palpable, tightening around his lungs.
Aubrey shakes her head, and then lifts a hand to move her hair away from her neck. She holds it back, and stretches her neck so that the smooth skin there is utterly revealed. Gabe swallows heavily, mouth dry. It seems so awful that he needs this, that in this moment he wants this, a violation of the highest order.
“Don’t take too much, okay?” Aubrey is quiet, her eyes closed. He leans in, and presses a kiss to the skin of her neck, the tense where throat becomes shoulder.
And then, because of Sofia, because of the way the room is swaying, because he is built for this and only this, destruction and blood and all that follows, he bites down, fangs sinking in like a knife through butter.
Aubrey gasps but does not move, except to find a grip on his knee, tightening and he begins to lap at the emerging blood, swallowing down the copper of it, creating a seal with his lips and beginning to suck.
His body reacts instantly, his thinking speeds up, his body feels almost alive, as Aubrey’s life enters him, this awful transfusion that leaves him wanting more, more, more, always, and he bites down harder without meaning too, and Aubrey, normally so stoic, tries to squirm away, arching her neck and letting out the smallest of whimpers.
He loses time, and ain’t that a thing? There is only the blood, greedy gulps and the sensation of flying high above everything, outside of everything. Aubrey is shoving at his chest, and it is only when she begins to cry that he comes back to himself, and, horrified, pushes himself away.
Aubrey clamps a hand over the puncture marks, blood spilling between her fingers. Gabe wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, the red stain so vibrant against his skin. Aubrey is shaking and pale, and the blood isn’t stopping, just dripping to the floor like liquid rubies, precious and rare and necessary.
Gabe moves forward again, pressing his hand over Aubrey’s, an attempt to stem the flow. She is drooping in her seat, her lips blue, and he wonders if he’s actually done it, actually killed her.
Time ticks by and she does not heal. Aubrey always heals. Her body self-refreshes and restores to factory settings. That’s how it works. That’s how it always worked.
But now, he can feel the looseness of her fingers under his, and whilst the blood is slowing, he can’t tell if it’s because the wound is clotting or because there’s simply no more to come out. He can’t leave her to get help, can’t remove his hand from over hers, a makeshift bandage and, he glances around the room, nothing to replace it with. He growls in frustration, in fear, and watches her eyes flutter, trying to focus and failing.
He could never tell you how long they stayed like that, the monster and his immortal until somehow not, victim. His mouth still tastes of metal when she rolls her head and fixes him with a steady gaze, her throat moving but no words coming out. She wiggles her fingers under his and he notices that the blood is dry now, crisp and dark, cracking as he moves his hand away. She lets her hand drop and he can see the damage, but what was once a flow is now a trickle, a bubbling rather than a torrent. He pulls his t-shirt off and balls it up, pressing it to the wound, though it seems like the worst is over. He holds it there nonetheless, and Aubrey stares at him the entire time, eyes glassy, breath coming out in tiny barely there puffs.
“Dying sucks,” she murmurs, and grins sadly.
“You’re not dying,” Gabe replies, and grabs her hand with his spare. “You’ve lost some blood, you’ll be all right.”
“You always were a terrible liar.”
“Aubrey, I don’t understand. Why aren’t you healing?” He needs answers, and she normally provides them, however cryptically. She’s their oracle, their security blanket.
“There is a time for all things, Gabriel, a beginning and an end. I think we forget that, sometimes, don’t we? We believe we’ll be young and beautiful forever, never for a second thinking that it could happen to us, that the world could turn on us and take away our youth, our promise. I’d say we lived too long, but I remember feeling like this when I was human, this certainty that I, against all odds, would live forever. How can every person born feel this way and know it despite all the evidence? What gave us the right to think that?”
“You’re not going to die,” Gabe says, because he doesn’t know, doesn’t understand, because death is something that hasn’t touched him for a long time.
“And so fantastically naïve. After all these years.”
She slumps, and Gabe panics, but her heartbeat is there, a flutter of life which hasn’t deserted her. He stays by her side a while longer, before standing carefully, tucking his t-shirt carefully around her throat.
Time waits for no man, and Sofia is still missing, and Aubrey, beautiful, vibrant and human Aubrey, would want him to carry on.
So he does. He leaves the room shi
rtless, covered in her blood, and with a head already spinning together the workings of a plan.
*
Matthew looks up first as Gabe walks back into the server room. His eyes go wide as he takes in the sight, but he says nothing. Caleb, however, speaks.
“Aubrey?”
Gabe shakes his head.
“She’s not healin’, but she’s okay. Sleeping.”
“You look like a horror show, Gabriel,” Caleb says, and shrugs off his hoodie to pass to Gabe, who pulls it over his head.
“I don’t really care. What have we got?” Gabe asks, leaning on the back of Nathan’s chair, watching the screens.
“Oh, you know, the usual. A ransom note. From El Presidente no less. Isn’t it nice to have friends in high places?” Nathan says, keying away as he speaks, jumping from command window to command window.
“Welland?” Gabe says flatly.
“The one and only. He wants, well, he wants you, Gabriel. Says you better come to him or – well he was quite detailed with what he’d do if you didn’t. Oh, and no murder, he was very specific about that. He wants you on his terms, if you fancy a non-violent stroll into the city.”
“You might want to think about this, man,” Caleb says carefully.
“What’s there to think about? He’s got Sofia,” Gabe snaps, before rubbing his eyes. He’s beginning to think this is going to be a really long day.
“All I’m saying is we don’t have to go along with everything he says. Take a few days, come up with a plan. A lifetime ago we were veterans, between us we must be able to come up with a serviceable tactical strategy. I can call in Tee and see what he can offer support-wise. I’m thinking we don’t want to just walk into this – ”
“ – blatant trap.” Nathan interrupts Caleb’s sentence and finishes it.
“Yeah,” Caleb agrees.
“He. Has. Sofia,” Gabe grits out.
“Gabe – ” Matthew tries, but Gabe cuts him off.
“What are you even doing here? You think you can help? Get him out of here.”
New Manhattan Page 4