i fell in love with the fire long ago

Gabriel Rian Meadowes. 103. Hybrid. Vampire. Mortician. Doctor.

[gabrielmeadowes]

@nathanmarchand​‌:

His eyes lift upwards, somewhat wondering if there’s another doctor here to treat him who doesn’t miss the arrival of one of his wife’s relatives. Time to meet with Aurélie more often than he does, clearly. “Have you been working a lot lately?” he asks, feeling a chill creep into his limbs. “Explains how you didn’t know before now. Tía is easily distracted, too, as you know.” Stitches were his thought too, so it’s nice to know he’s still sound of mine. A little, given the way he grimaces as he tries to take the shirt off and settles for ripping it down the front rather than trying to stretch his arm above his head, which is impossible. Nathan waits impatiently, unconcerned about his shirtless state except for the way the cold air feels on his wound. He tries not to twitch too much, but shifts slightly as Gabriel returns with his little cart of pointy objects, thread, and general healing supplies. “You have done stitches before, correct? On someone alive?” From what he remembers on the little bit of a file they have for Gabriel Meadowes, he owned the funeral home, and he isn’t quite sure when Gabriel made the transition from there to nurse. Nor living to dead, but that’s another question for another time. “She is my Abuelo Abel’s sister which makes her my tía abuela. My great-aunt,” he clarifies, at once unsure about how much his tía has told this man about her family. Nathan knows little of them or their relationship, either. “How did you meet her? Obviously this is not a family story anyone on my side knows given I’m the only one who knows she is still alive. Suppose one of us should know something of it.”

“Lielie is preoccupied for reasons that I’ll let her tell you, yes. I’m easing into working with patients again. It’s...an adjustment.” Gabe said, his placid expression going sour at Nathan’s question about stitches. That earns Nathan a glare and a pause long enough to be borderline uncomfortable, then he nods. “I was a medic in London during the Blitz and you aren’t my first patient since switching disciplines. But y’know, thanks for the faith.” It was lucky for Nathan that he had only just started cleaning the wound when he mentioned Abel, because Gabe’s terse little laugh quickly blossomed into a larger one that required him to step away for a moment. Abel, his favorite of his wife’s siblings. Abel, whom he had sent champagne to every year for his birthday since the late 40′s, who had nearly gotten them arrested in Avignon more than once. This was his grandson? The sense of humor clearly got lost somewhere in the family tree since Abel, but he could see it in the looks. “Ah fuck. So he did keep his mouth shut about me to the rest of the clan, I’m deeply impressed. Incroyable qu'il puisse, mon frere Abel.” While he reminisced though, Nathan was still wounded, so he gathered himself after a few moments. Went back to cleaning, then prepped his needle. “I met her during the war. I was an unworldly Catholic priest in training, she a lovely ball of fire. Abel I met at her funeral, when we thought she’d been killed.” Luckily Gabe had stitched enough wounds in his life that it was relatively easy to stitch and talk, but he looked down often between his words. “There are bars in Avignon that we’re permanently banned from. A casino too, but that’s his fault for dragging that swordfish he’d won into their lobby. Finally got him to call me recently, but it’s uh...” Gabe finished the last stitch with a flourish, then shrugged. “It’s hard to explain to humans why you don’t age. He knows, no one else did.”

[gabrielmeadowes]

@queenamongstshades​‌:

He may not look like Bran, but Gods, Gabriel looks like Faolan. As if the hair, the eyes, and the stature weren’t enough, this boy even moves like his father. Their mannerisms are similar enough that if Caoimhe didn’t know any better, she would think her husband had raised this child himself. If only. He even goes as far as to try and defend his father’s intentions, which Caoimhe simply shakes her head at. “I certainly don’t take offense. Hard thing for anyone to bring into conversation, I imagine. Let alone Faolan, who I’ve always known to keep his emotions close to his chest.” As for the wondering, well. “I’d be happy to tell you anything you’re curious about.” It’s an offer that is perhaps too generous. But Caoimhe has always been the giving sort. She can only hope this son of Faolan’s has enough tact to know to stray from the worst of it. Besides, those details are all a blur to her – she’d be little help. Luckily, for now she doesn’t have to divulge, instead listening to Gabriel’s story. Not sure when she developed the habit of patient nodding, but there she is, doing it. Until he brings up Faolan again. “Gabriel, I don’t hold a thing against your father, let alone you. Do I wish he’d chosen to take to bed with a woman who wasn’t the sort to abandon a child? Of course. And I’m certainly sorry for what you missed out due to that choice. But I’m hardly sitting here stewing with malice.” Of course, she pities what Faolan had missed out on, too. This child seems to Caoimhe like quite the second chance, considering all that they lost. But that doesn’t exactly feel important when his son sits before her looking like, well, that. “The way I see it, you were both robbed of quite a bit.” That’s a gentle way to put it, anyway. Never one to linger on the negative, Caoimhe tries to press forward. “How’ve things been since you found each other?” She’s heard Faolan’s perspective, of course, but the image of a pitiful child in an orphanage makes her want to ask Gabriel himself. “From what I’ve heard, the Meadowes clan is stronger in numbers than I ever saw myself. Has it been what you dreamt, having a family now?”

Close to his chest was an awfully polite way to put it, and she didn’t seem the polite type. But it also sounded like something his wife would say about him, so that explained that well enough. It wasn’t his job to seek forgiveness for his father, certainly, but Gabe felt a pressing need to be forgiven by this sweet woman for being born. Sounded like he’d got it, so that was his Catholic guilt assuaged at least. “You’ll have to forgive me, I was about two steps from the priesthood when I met my wife. They did a number on my moral compass, stuffed in as much guilt as they could.” Gabe said, pondering just what he could ask. He knew vaguely what would be too much, even with the vast lot of nothing his Da had told him since they met. “Suppose we might have been, but we’ve time now. Things’ve been...well, I mean, I did die. So that was rough on him. But I’ve a feeling it’s more than that. You know how he is though, you can’t pry anything out of him if he doesn’t want it.” Too close to the edge, he thinks. Ah, but weren’t there tattooed names he’s asked about before, but gotten no answer? That seemed gentle enough. “Nothing’s ever like you dream it, but it’s nice. I’ve an aunt, an uncle, cousins and all that, but...ah shit. Da’s got tattoos of some names, won’t tell me anything about them. I’ve a hunch, but I’m afraid to ask him.” Not her though. She was softer than his Da, ever so slightly more open, and hadn’t it always been easier for him to speak to women about things on the emotional side? That nunnery childhood never did fade. “Bran, Deirdre, Alanna. Who were they?”

[gabrielmeadowes]

@lilysundara​‌:

The files have no photos or portraits attached. She can see why they didn’t back in the day, there’s no such thing as photos in the human sense in the Otherlands, but it irks her to have no idea who is who in her files. So when a tall, thin man who looks half dead appears, she thinks nothing of it. Lily raises a brow. “I never have wrong ideas, only some that are a little behind the times as is the case here. You are no longer one of my people?” she asks, gesturing him into her office with a flap of her hand. It’s hard not to roll her eyes at the way he stands in the threshold, like he’s uncomfortable in her very presence, but easier at the mentions of hybrid. None of those in the Otherlands after all. “Your files are incomplete, the last reference I have of you is, ah, what is the month in your realm?” She frowns, several rolling through her head. Novatide? No, it was–  “November, that’s it. Have you been stagnant since then? If you are not one of my people, what are you? Why is there no record of this?” Half dead, she remembered, and struggles for a brief moment to remember which of the ones are dead. Not a shade like her mother, he’s too solid. “Are you a lich? I haven’t met one yet, not unless you count the stuffy man acting as the regent for Ms. Lockhart which I do not.”

Gabe snorted at her response. Never, huh? Imperious, ridiculous, but that was his experience with the vast majority of Otherlanders short of his family. They were weirdos though, or so his aunt had told him. He picked up on sentence two that this was someone you let spew words till they had finished, lest you trip over each other trying to speak. So he let her continue, standing uncomfortably in her doorway regardless of her invitation. “I died in November. Had been dying, my uncle helped me along so I could have a chance to be something else.” He answered, shrugging. Sounded politer that way and it wasn’t her business how or why he had been dying. No records and a stuffy asshole to replace Odette? That sounded par for the course with the council these days, but the nuns had taught him better than to say something so rude. A lich? He rolled his eyes and clicked his tongue, grinning widely enough that she could see his fangs. “You don’t get much control over becoming a lich. Not my style. Vampire, so’s my wife. But my family’s mostly Fae. might be why your files are fucked six ways from Saturday.” Gabe craned a little to skim the file open on her desk. Ah, so they were all on there after all. Had to register who his parents were to change his name and marry, so that all went in the pile. “Faolan Meadowes, y’see. Why are you calling Fae into your office anyway?”

[gabrielmeadowes]

@fionalaughlin​‌:

“Gross,” Fiona wrinkles her nose at her cousin’s comment about his wife, though her smile and laughter show that she’s far from serious. “Also, I thought you guys were always cold, not warm. Or am I mixing up my species facts again?” She pulls her gaze from the shelves to look at Gabe rightfully when he evaluates her project. What can she say? Any opinion that isn’t her own feels valuable these days, especially when it’s family. So that’s reassuring. “Good to know. I was about to say your silence on the glitter issue was deafening, but I’m going to take your glue approval as a yes.” She grins, gaze returning to the sparkly selections of tape as she laughs. “I’m beginning to see that. You know, I already sort of knew I was an anomaly, and let me tell you, the amount of parents I apparently have does not help that feeling.” Weird amnesiac fae girl raised by humans. There are worse things, Fiona imagines – not being raised at all, for instance. Her poor cousin… Not that she remembers a bit of her own youth at this point, but she’d like to think it was better than growing up under the watch of nuns. Fiona’s pleased grin at her memory’s success shrinks some as she spots glaring eyes from down the aisle. Oops. “Guess not many people excitedly yell ‘morgue’ around here.” She murmurs toward Gabe, the snicker that follows it stifled some. Two shades of blue poster board are clutched in her hands when he then brings up a pertinent fact and Fiona’s expression falls. As do the large pieces of paper she lets go of. “Oh, man… I forgot.” Typical. Fiona sighs heavily, casting a guilty look in her cousin’s direction. “I’m sorry. Um… here!” Quick on the rebound, she rights what she’s dropped and pulls two different papers from the racks. “Spots or stripes? You – you can see patterns, right?” Realizing the ridiculousness of the question only after she’s said it, Fiona laughs. “Maybe this is why we didn’t get into crafting much. I should probably just go check out and stop dragging you around the store.”

“What? Not gross, she’s my wife. And no, you aren’t messing them about. I’m talking about her personality, Fi.” Gabe retorted, holding out the basket for the unholy glitter hell she was putting into it. God, he hated the stuff, but it made Fiona happy so he was willing to pretend otherwise. You couldn’t force any train of thought on the previous Fiona either, but he didn’t want her feeling like any more of a freak than she did already. So he thought about how to gently prod her away from that summation while she pulled supplies off the shelves at a rapid pace. “No, don’t think they do shout morgue often. But Fi, I was a Fae/witch hybrid in my day. You’re nowhere near as much of an anomaly as me. I’ll arm wrestle you for the title, that’s a promise.” Gabe said, squinting at the poster board that she was holding up at him. Ah there it went again, the self doubt that was peak pre-river Fiona. None of that allowed here, not if he could help it. “Ah no, I think that’s because I’m rubbish at it, but you’re clearly brilliant. Auntie Cora’s excellent at fashion and the like, so’s Lielie. But hey! We’ll try our best.” He had the names down at least, even if he didn’t know a thing about his siblings aside from those bare words and the fact they were dead. Unlike his stepmother or anyone else in his family, Fiona was blissfully unaware enough that he could slide his card to the clerk and pay for everything without her noticing till after. Thank god for that, he wasn’t about to get in a fight in the craft store. Gabe gave her one of the lightest bags, then took the rest himself as they walked outside. “Right then, where are we headed? My house, your apartment? Suppose we could show up at Da’s shop, but he’d shoo us away. Lielie bought this massive dining room table you can use. Tons of space to spread out, and she won’t mind us using it.”

[gabrielmeadowes]

@faolanmeadowes​‌:

He hasn’t dug a deep enough hole to hide these memories from his nightmares, but he finds little ways to push the dreams back. Like the near too many locks on his door and the small, easy to reach weapons tucked around the shop. Both are useful, especially the latter when he hears the back door open, the hilt of it in his hand a familiar weight, an extension of his arm. No hesitation, not again. “Is that you, Gabriel?” he breathes, heart hammering in his chest. Faolan mumbles curses in Sidhe. His dagger lowers for a moment until he huffs a sigh, tossing it to the side where it embeds in a dummy he bought for this express purpose. It’s several seconds before he collects himself enough to speak, long enough for Gabriel’s words to wash over him, for his own worried curses to drift away. He switches back to English, not having the time to teach his son the rudimentary knowledge of another language just this moment. Someday, perhaps, Faolan will show him pieces of his roots. “What are you doing here? I wasn’t expecting you.” No, but that’s never been a problem in the past. Gabriel once came and went freely, but times have changed. Faolan smiles grimly. “I will be fine, you startled me, I forget how silently you can move now that you no longer trip so easily.” Faolan continues letting the subject sit there, but Gabriel has a stubborn look on his face. He continues on, attempting to ignore it. “You should be careful, I have no wish to bury you.” Cheerful. Nicely done, Faolan. He’s forgotten how much harder it is to talk to Gabriel sometimes, something he’s slowly attempted to remedy. The progressing is falling apart before his eyes.

Gabe held up the books he had been carrying by way of answer, then sat them on the table like the suddenly unimportant objects that they now were. It wasn’t the fact that his father had wheeled and nearly thrown a dagger at him that bothered Gabe in this moment. He would have survived that just fine. “Caoimhe wanted to borrow some books she’d seen when she was over last. I’d a moment free, so I brought them over. And I knocked, Da.” Gabe said flatly. His empathy was long gone, but he didn’t need that to notice how he’d been held at arm’s length since he died or the way his father shifted the subject thinking that he would bow out again and not prod. With Caoimhe he understood, for her everything was fresh and he was sure that in some way, her coming back made it fresher again for his father. But coming so close to the precipice and then being pushed towards another with Daniel Bisset looming over his head had left Gabe feeling impatient with being kept in the dark. It certainly wasn’t for his good anymore, his fragile health was in the past, and he wasn’t asking for full disclosure. Just something, anything, which seemed impossible no matter when or how he asked. “If I had been buried, would you have told me anything before the casket dropped?” He said, letting that sentence stand in the tense air between them for a moment. “About my siblings, about any of what happened to them and Caoimhe? And you can dart around it, but what I am bothers you. How long are you going to deny that instead of talking to me about it?” Gabe heard his voice rising in pitch, then lowered it. Best to limit how much he antagonized him. Not that he thought it would help, given how little he had historically gotten out of his da. “I can’t tell if it’s me as a person that’s the problem or what I am. Or why, honestly.”

[gabrielmeadowes]

@aureliemeadowes​‌:

It’s not as if it’s uncommon to spend time out in the back yard. Really, it’s a lovely piece of land, and if they weren’t both so prone to sun-induced pain nowadays, they might spend afternoons out there. But darkness has settled in now and the fact that her husband hasn’t returned from his venture out into the yard has Aurélie worried. Until she slides open the glass door and picks up on a scent she hasn’t been privy to in quite some time. It’s enough to raise her brow, amusement overriding any concern or pressing need to have what might be an uncomfortable conversation. She’s still smirking when she taps her husband’s shoulder, though his reaction makes her jump, palms raising to indicate her innocence. “It is only me! Merde, I forget sometimes how your reflexes have changed.” His comment brings her smile back some, her head tilting. “I can say it, if you would really like. For old time’s sake, hm?” She leans back against the shed herself before reaching out a hand, not answering his question. “Would you happen to have one to spare, monsieur?” After the cigarette is lit, she allows for some silence, though it’s hardly uncomfortable – not on Aurélie’s behalf, anyway. Just… reminiscent. Enough so that she shakes her head, letting out a laugh before a puff of smoke. “I feel like we are hiding from the nuns. Do you remember that little alcove, where we would have to pin our backs to the wall so we wouldn’t be seen?” She nudges Gabriel’s shoulder with her own, allowing another moment for playfulness and the memory, pleasant now despite the outcome of those years. No matter how nice that is, she knows she can’t stew in it forever. With that thought in mind, Aurélie pulls a piece of paper from her back pocket, handing it over. Gabriel already knows what it is, clearly, but she takes another drag whilst he reads before she speaks up. “I found this earlier when I was cleaning. The drawer it was in was propped open, and, well…” Curiosity killed the cat, but she’s already dead enough. “It seems that you have been planning for some time.”

If he wasn’t such an idiot, he would have thought to digitize all the research he had been doing, and then she wouldn’t have found it at all. He also would have realized that if he had enhanced senses, so did she, but he had...well, hoped seemed a terribly dumb word for what was a form of wish deferment. Gabe had thought that perhaps if he researched it enough that would make it clear that it was a dream too far, something that could never be. Except it wasn’t and now he was just plain scared by the concept, in between the time he spent scared about what her ex husband might do next and whether or not he was a danger to his family with his change. So smoking had helped too, once research had proved him a fool indeed. “To be fair,” Gabe pointed out after she had handed him the paper, still leaving it folded in his hand as if he could keep it that way forever. “That was hardly all we did in that alcove. Lucky the Mother Superior only caught us the once.” If he was spiteful man he’d drop it, refuse to answer her question and stomp away in a Neanderthalian huff, but that seemed like a very Daniel thing to do. He was afraid, not angry, and it had been his stupid ass that had left the drawer askew earlier.  “I...it’s always the wrong bloody time for me to ask you about it. That’s what it feels like, at least. Suppose you also found the bills from the fertility clinic for storage too, so I’ve really fucked myself over.” Gabe took a long drag from his cigarette, then forced himself to look his wife in the eye. Mainly at this point he was afraid he’d make her cry, and hadn’t she cried enough tears because of him? He thought so. “I’ve always wanted a child with you, Lielie. Thought about it constantly when I was dying, put a bit in the will that you’d be left the stored samples if I died properly, all that. But I...he’s still out there, isn’t he? So we can’t.”

[etcpackers]

Robert Pattinson photographed by Todd Cole for Les Inrockuptibles (November 2018)

[gabrielmeadowes]

@fionalaughlin​‌:

Date: May 11th, 2021 Time: 4:15 pm Location: Lethe’s general store

@gabrielmeadowes​

“Well, I don’t know why Aurélie is orange. She just… is.” Here they are, cousins in the craft section, the younger of the two comparing sets of washable markers with a squint. The colors in question pertain to the family tree that Fiona has settled on making. Color coded, of course. Clearly, with the way she keeps forgetting names, the hospital’s lists just aren’t cutting it. One could point out that there are more pressing matters to discuss – the incident a little over a week ago, maybe. But she’d already begrudgingly confessed to her uncle. She’s not bringing it up to Gabe. Instead, she has more important inquiries to make. “Is glitter tacky?” A word she’d only just learned, overheard in a discussion about a girl’s pair of boots that Fiona had really liked. Maybe her taste isn’t good. “Be honest. You know I don’t know any better.” Deciding more is better, Fiona puts both sets of markers into her basket and turns to look at Gabe full on, her smile genuine. “Thanks for helping me with this silly project, by the way. You don’t have to. But I can’t say I don’t appreciate it – ooh!” She looks beyond her cousin toward the wall colorful tape selections on display, squeezing past him to look at them more thoroughly. “If fancy tapes are tacky, don’t tell me. I’d rather stay ignorant.” Once quite a few of those are selected, Fiona wanders, looking for the right canvas for the project at hand. “I’m guessing we never did anything like this before,” she muses between looking at pieces of poster boards. “Probably didn’t have time for it when I was always in the ER and you were in the…morgue? The morgue. I remembered this time!” Little victories. “Did we mostly meet up for lunch?”

It felt wrong, thinking to himself that the loss of her memories was more of a gift to Fiona than a burden. He loved the Fiona that was before the river, but this one? She was happy, bubbly, not held down by anxieties and whatever it was her pseudo parents had gotten into her head over the years. “Because she’s beautiful and warm like the sun? No? Alright, well she does like orange.” Gabe offered. The question about glitter made him snort, but he let her finish her rambling before he’d offer another opinion. Then she started down that primrose path again, the one where she doubted herself, and that was reason enough to step in. “First of all, it’s not a silly project. It’s an excellent one. I could have gone all my life without being associated with glitter glue and blue washi tape, but now I don’t have to. Second of all, our family tree is a bloody mess so you’d need a chart like this to understand it.” Her delight at remembering where he worked was in and of itself delightful. It made him smile wide enough to match as he took the tapes she handed him and dropped them into the shopping basket. Did they only meet for lunch? It was a solid question and one that made him uncomfortably aware how true it was. Something else to work on, clearly. “Y’know, we didn’t and that’s despicable. But hey, new beginnings, right? But Fi, I do want to point out you’re asking a colorblind man about which colors suit and I think you’d be better off picking yourself. I can’t see the vast majority of the ones you’re holding, love.”

[gabrielmeadowes]

@queenamongstshades​‌:

He doesn’t look much like Bran would’ve – or so she speculates, anyway. No, where this Gabriel’s hair is light her boy’s had been dark. This man’s features are leaner, too, but perhaps her son’s would have been if he’d ever grown from childhood. That thought makes her swallow hard, but she forces lightness into her expression as she looks toward this son of Faolan’s. “I see,” Caoimhe gives a small laugh, a nod. “Glad to know I’ve fit into a pattern.” She’s smiling still, but her eyes scan, to decipher any familiar features as well as emotion. How strange, to have to read feelings from a face after so many years of having a sense for them. Challenging, too, and she’s bordering on scrutiny when an offer is extended. “You certainly do.” She agrees, forcing her curiosity down in hopes to reassure him, offering the patient sort of smile she would’ve once given to Deirdre as she struggled to sort the details of a story. “That’d be lovely, thank you – oh, well. Hardly think that’s true, considering what I’ve been told about your kind.” Perhaps a joke in poor taste, but she’s been good for those since her youth, and her typical grin follows it. “I’ll not be staying too long, don’t want to take up your afternoon, but I figured we’d be best off being properly introduced.” It’s a lovely home, and she’s set toward complimenting him on it when she catches sight of a dark-haired woman who glances between them with bewilderment. Caoimhe offers a polite smile and it’s mirrored hastily before the unfamiliar woman nods quickly and makes herself scarce. Ah, well. She certainly hadn’t looked like family, anyway. Unlike Gabriel, whose eyes she can almost feel against her back, so she turns to face him rightly. “You’ve a fine house – have you lived here long? From what Faolan told me, I gather you two have only been recently acquainted. Shame, really.”

Gabe laughed at her soft joke about his vampirism. He hadn’t been expecting such a thing at what was an odd, tense meeting thus far. It softened things a tad, as did the ease he felt once he was inside his own home. His wife shot him a glance and he shook his head at her silent question. Not a threat, not by a long shot. They knew each other well enough that she didn’t question it, just went off to work on the garden as she had been planning when Gabe went out for the mail. The letters and little packages could wait, he sat them on the coffee table and gestured towards the sofa in his living room before taking a seat himself in a wing chair opposite. “I think...well, I don’t think Da meant anything by not telling me about you. About your family. It’s deep grief, I could tell before I uh...died. But I’ve wondered, obviously. About you, about your children.” Gabe explained, crossing his legs in an gesture that echoed his father. Wondered a lot, the way only a child who grew up in an orphanage could wonder, with a heavy dose of yearning mixed in. “I grew up in an orphanage in London, so you always dream of having some secret family who’d just misplaced you. I didn’t even fancy being a lost prince, just wanted a family. I was uh...well, I wouldn’t want you thinking less of Da, but I was what they called a victory baby. My ma dropped me off in the arms of Mother Church and called it a day.” He had the sneaking feeling he was forgetting to do something, but what do you offer a ghost who’s come to visit? Not much, he supposed. “She didn’t tell him. So it’s not his fault or anything, y’see.”

[gabrielmeadowes]

@nathanmarchand​‌:

Date: 08 May 2021 Time: mid-morning Location: Lethe General Hospital Status: closed with @gabrielmeadowes​

It’s not bleeding much, but any injury on the back is awful to treat and it’s just deep enough to need stitches. This is the only reason Nathan relents to the inevitable and heads to the hospital, tight-lipped on how he got his injuries short of an accident. “You work here?” he asks blankly when he spots the taller man and recognizes him from the photos in Aurélie’s house. For all the months he’d know his tía, he’s managed to not speak with her husband, differing schedules and all. And a healthy dose of avoiding him, not sure if he particularly wants to meet the man Abel had spoken to all these years. “Do you not own Avalon then? The files they have on you are wrong, I’ll have to adjust that,” he muses, watching the man thoughtfully, his injuries mostly forgotten with this… surprise. “It is very weird to meet you. Forgive me if I don’t call you tío as I should.” It’s too much to call him family yet, he doesn’t know him enough. Doesn’t help that the man, while quite taller than him, looks far too young to be his uncle, even if Aurélie is equally too young to be his aunt.

Generally people are caught off guard by Gabe’s knack for walking too quietly or the fact that they vaguely remember seeing him at a funeral once long ago. He can handle that. What he can’t handle is the one-two punch of facts that the man, Nathan by the look of the file he’d grabbed, throws at him. Tío ? Files? No, this is far too weird for his day, he needs...well, he needs to read past the first few lines on these files for one thing. Nathan Marchand. Ah. “Right, let’s back up a tad here. You’ve the same last name as my wife, you look vaguely like her family, and you know things about me that I don’t quite understand how you’ve learned. That’s the very weird bit of this meeting on my end, mate.” Gabe said, craning a tad to see that blood was seeping through the back of the man’s shirt. So he wasn’t just here to freak Gabe out. Right then. “You need that cleaned up and stitched and I need some answers before my brain explodes. That sound like a fair trade? Let me get the bits and bobs I need and you get that shirt off before it adheres to the wound.” Gathering items would at least keep his hands busy for a time, give him a moment to think. Still didn’t change the fact that he had a wound to fix up by the time he rolled the cart over, but it helped. “You said tío, so my wife is your aunt? Correct?”

[gabrielmeadowes]

Date: May 9th, 2021 Time: 7PM Location: Heat Of The Moment, lower level

@faolanmeadowes​

He quite liked his father’s wife. His stepmother, he supposed he should call her, but he hadn’t quite worked up the courage to do so yet. She had children once upon a time, children who were far older than himself, so it was best not to assume. Probably. There were several books he had offered to her on loan the last time she had been over at his house and it had taken him this long to get them together with a free moment to go over to the smithy. He had forgotten the harsh pace of doctoring the living in the time he served the dead instead, it seemed. Gabe unlocked the back door of the shop with his key, then slipped inside without a word of greeting. Would his father have heard him anyway? He wasn’t going to find out, not with how Faolan was halfway across the room with a dagger in hand by the time Gabe had started walking to the front room. “Da! It’s just me, I promise. Just me, some books, and...” Faolan seemed to ease off a bit after that and Gabe sighed. Was it just since he turned that his father seemed more on edge? He couldn’t be sure, but he wondered. It wasn’t as if Gabe hadn’t excused himself from a room filled with Fae relatives more than once these past months as he built up a tolerance to the scent of their blood. “I’m sorry I scared you, I’ll...stomp or something coming in next time. Are you alright? And don’t be putting off the question, we’ve both got to stop with that. It’s more than just me startling you, isn’t it?”

[gabrielmeadowes]

Date: May 10th, 2021 Time: 9PM Location: Behind the shed in Gabe and Aurelie’s garden

@aureliemeadowes​

Right after he had come back to England after Lielie’s funeral, Gabe had taken up smoking to add to his list of self destructive habits. Seemed a fair idea and it calmed his nerves, but it also made him feel like he was drowning. He kept it up off and on until he came to Lethe, where the weather was so humid that it only made the situation worse. It had eased the stress and pain of the time to some psychosomatic degree, so it was little wonder that in times of similar awfulness he fell into the habit again. At least this time he was too dead for it to matter. Still, he didn’t smoke around or within sight of his family or his wife, which was precisely why he was standing behind the garden shed, staring out at the neighbor’s koi pond over the fence. The hand on his shoulder jolted him as if he had been hooked up to a generator and his cigarette fell into the soft grass too, which made Gabe curse under his breath. Who would...oh. Fuck. “Suppose this is the point where you tell me that these things will kill me one day. If we’re going to be stereotypical about it. Then again, we’ve never been much for stereotypes.” Gabe sighed, reaching down for the now spent cigarette that met its death on the dew dampened grass. Lielie looked like she had something to say, something she’d been waiting to bring up until he got home. Ah, not to do with cigarettes then. Probably. “What’s wrong, ma vie?”

[gabrielmeadowes]

Date: May 10th, 2021 Time: 8:30AM Location: City Hall

@lilysundara​

You didn’t ignore a summons, not from someone who outranked you. That much had been beaten into him at a young age by a series of nuns and priests. So regardless of the fact that it was annoying and seemingly superfluous for him to be sitting in this hallway, he was there. Early, even. This Sundara woman was the Fae councilperson, wasn’t she? He had only ever been half of one and he hadn’t pissed any Fae off lately, as far as he knew, so what precisely required a summons was beyond him. Gabe had just begun to passive aggressively text his wife when the door opened and the scent of Fae filled the air, surrounding the relatively young looking woman in the doorway. Another hurdle of his existence these days. Gabe sighed inwardly and stood, though she hadn’t moved to invite him into her office yet. Good, maybe he could get away without actually having to be in an enclosed space with a Fae he didn’t know. “Listen, councilwoman Sundara, I think you’ve got the wrong idea here. I’m not your constituent. I was but uh...disease and hybrid genetics got in the way.” Oh hell, now she looked even MORE interested. He shouldn’t have brought that up at all, but he had been sitting here percolating all this time and the first thought had bubbled up right away. “Why did you ask me to come?”

[gabrielmeadowes]

@queenamongstshades​‌:

Date: February 17th 2021 Time: 12:30 pm Location: Gabriel & Aurélie’s house

@gabrielmeadowes​

A son. When the initially prompted visions of Bran had faded, when the questions were answered: that was when the wonder set in. Lovely, isn’t it? To be given something like this after so long of solitude. Faolan’s solitude was the suffocating sort, that much she could tell from even her brief glimpses. So she’s happy. Happy for her husband and happy for this son who, from what she has heard, had so little in the way of nurturing. She didn’t ask much in way of the woman, this lover of Faolan’s and mother of Gabriel’s, and it occurs to her during the walk to the provided address that she may be stepping on toes. But the boy had been raised by nuns, so really, Caoimhe doubts she has much reason to fret. She assures herself of that as she opens the gate (could walk through it, she’s learned, but that seems, frankly, rude) and starts down the pathway. No chance to make it to the door, though, as a man steps out the front door and takes her breath away. “Oh.” Thinner, sure, but he’s Faolan’s son. There’s no doubting that. He has that same sandy hair on him, the mirrored posture, long gait. And she’d bet – yes. Same blue eyes, blown wide, startled, then squinted, suspicious. “So sorry,” the woman offers with a raise of her palms. “I hardly meant to frighten you. I’ve just been told that I, ah…” How to word this one? She hadn’t thought quite that far. Bit of an introduction to make, isn’t it? “Well. I’m Caoimhe.” A decent place to start, but he very well may have no idea who she is. Clarification, then: “Faolan, ah, Meadowes and I were married many years ago. And I suppose I, well… wanted to see my husband’s son for myself. That’s all.”

It was deathly boring, being in hiding, but it was better than leaving Lielie alone. Better than chancing that Daniel would strike again, and maybe this time in a way that not even burn balm could fix. Since his death, Gabe had been shifting his life around, prodding at new paths. The funeral home he had sold, as something about the work he had done so long no longer appealed. Maybe once you had been a corpse, you didn’t much care for the vagaries of the funeral industry, especially not in this town. So he had free time. Too much, honestly. If the specter of Daniel Bisset hadn’t been lurking over his every breath these days he could think more long term, consider going back into medicine for the living. Instead he was walking out to the mailbox, looking at his phone as he went, and very nearly smacked into a woman standing on his front walk. Not that Mary woman, thankfully. Someone else, someone who seemed to know his face. Gabe opened his mouth to speak but shut it again, letting her finish what she had to say. His father’s wife? The one he wouldn’t talk about. The dead one. But ah, didn’t the dead come back a new way now? Since Fiona came back. So it’s weird, it’s uncomfortable, but not impossible. “Well, I would...I’d argue you are still if you’ve come through the veil. Til death do we part doesn’t work well in Lethe, I’ve found.” Gabe said, dancing around the subject of himself a tad. The bastard son, the wrong one by any reckoning, for hadn’t she had a son? One who died at the hand of one of his kind. God, it was like awkward subject bingo here. “You’re welcome to though, I suppose. I’m not much to look at, but I uh...well, we look alike. He’s not told me much of anything about you. Well, pretty much nothing. You’ve likely got questions, I’ve got the same. D’you think you’d like to come inside a little while? I don’t bite, I promise.”

[gabrielmeadowes]

@aureliemeadowes​‌:

It is the differences that matter at a time like this, when she struggles so to separate past from present. Where Daniel had towered over her after those unspeakable deeds, Gabriel falls to his knees. Where one pair of blue eyes had looked away from her in disgust, this pair searches hers with trepidation and even tears. As staggering as the pain and regret may be, it does ease her panic. Enough that she reaches forward at the mention of his wishes and, after a fragmented moment of hesitation thanks to the lingering tremors in her hands, uses her unhurt thumb to wipe away the tear traveling down his cheek. Then, softly, she ends up where she started: “Je sais.” What can they do? This is the question that has haunted them so. Now more than ever. How can he help? What is helpful, really, in a situation like this? For now, it seems easier to start somewhere simpler. Her tarnished shirt sits beside her, removed to be taken away as well as to reveal the burnt skin of her torso. The new, gray, hospital-issued one sits on her lap still, and sweatpants beside. Her clothing would go into evidence, they said. Though she struggles to see where it will help, she does want to be rid of these tarnished garments, the stains of this awful night. So she looks to her husband, knowing the answer before she speaks her request aloud. “For now… can you help me?” 

The hospital issued shirt is held forward then, a regular olive branch. The effort in putting it on is a slow one, the fitting of her bandaged arm into a sleeve making her wince more than once. Careful, too, is the way she rises to her feet then begins the effort of shucking bloodied, dirty jeans, using her husband’s shoulder for balance. Revealing more bruises, too, up thigh and hip from when she’d been pinned. It is only when those aching marks are covered that Aurélie exhales, exhaustion setting in as the fear fades. She takes a moment then, leaning forward, allowing a bruised cheek to rest against Gabriel’s chest. “I would like to go home now.” As if hearing her request, a knock on the door brings in the two nurses from before, the one holding forward a pamphlet on burn care and the cooler of blood with perhaps too much enthusiasm. How long has it been since she was last a patient? Even with that thought in mind, Aurélie manages something akin to a smile, though her gaze darts to the returned Laurie, who quietly tucks her ruined clothing into a plastic bag. And then the nurses are gone, leaving silence in their wake. It would seem that her wish is fulfilled, and she turns to her husband, seeking perhaps childlike validation. With the constant uncertainty as of late, it feels necessary. “We can go home, yes? Or do you need to stay here? For work?”

Her touch is a reprieve all its own and Gabriel lets out a breath that he hadn’t been aware he had been holding as she wipes the tear off of his cheek. Perhaps he isn’t so much like Daniel after all. Would he have felt any guilt then? Probably not. The fear subsides, shoved aside by the look on her face and the request to help her dress. “I wish I could have gotten you clothes from home, love. But I didn’t want to make you wait alone.” The bruises he hadn’t previously seen give him pause, but he keeps the horror to himself. Instead he swallows hard, he helps her with her clothing until she is dressed in something not spattered in blood. The nurses return, a cooler of blood and a pamphlet in hand, and he flashes them a smile to match Lielie’s, the better to brush away the sound of his knees smacking the floor earlier and the fact that bloody tears had hit the collar of his shirt. His wife mentions going home and he nods, taking the cooler in one hand and taking her hand in the other, as gently as he could. They’re halfway down the hallway before her second question registers with him and he sighs. 

On the one hand, she spent many hours looking for Fiona and would want to know that she had been found. And how, and her state as of now. But if he told her, wouldn’t she want to stay? Of course she would, he knew his wife too well to assume otherwise. “I don’t need to stay here, ma vie. We should go home, let you rest. As far as I’m concerned, I am off duty for the rest of the day. All of it.” He said, stepping through the front doors of the hospital. Thankfully his grandfather was in a side room with his not quite girlfriend, his father asleep, and Arthur off talking to his aunt. No one to indicate anything too exciting was going on, let alone anything to do with his family. Carefully, he helps her into the car and even does her seatbelt for her, lest she have to move the burned skin that he was sure still hurt. His hand lingers on hers when he leans back into his driver’s seat and he looks over at her, exhausted in ways that he couldn’t sleep away now that he had changed. “That selkie guy, the tech expert. I’ll call him in the morning, schedule an emergency session to get the house wired up. Cameras, motion sensors, the like. Would that be alright with you?”

[gabrielmeadowes]

@aureliemeadowes​‌:

Everything is mended. Or so it seems as bandages are secured, scalded skin shrouded under sanitary white. Out of sight, out of mind. If only it were the truth. Beyond the stinging pain as she hesitantly flexes her fingers, Aurélie can feel the ache of tension unspoken before this audience of one. Until she is dismissed carefully, quietly, with a fleeting glance backward. Though Aurélie feels herself nod, she is mired in the patterned memory. This was how it always began, wasn’t it? Clear the room or get to somewhere private. Away from family, friends, guests. Nurses. No, no. That was a different era, a different man, though he’d been so close tonight, and she bears the marks to prove it. The door clicks with some finality, and though brown eyes wander towards her husband, they pull away when their gazes meet. “I know.” It’s all that Aurélie can manage, an attempted pick against the iciness of his tone, but it’s nothing, really. He continues, and so does she, a sort of reversion to old habits. Brought on by what, some vague part of her can’t help but wonder. Which fear: past or present? She draws the hospital issued shirt towards herself with little thought, white-knuckled. Fists raise in front of herself as more of a barrier than anything combative. After all, that rarely stands a chance.

Protesting does little good either, she knows that, but at the shouted sound of her own name, she can’t help it. Can’t help her own wince either, shoulders drawing in, purpled jaw clenched tight. “Stop.” Whispered between clenched teeth, behind a quivering bottom lip, it does little good. His volume grows and she shrinks, hating her own tears even more now than she had in front of August earlier. Tears that have begun to fall by the time Aurélie finds some semblance of fight in herself, her argument presented with her eyes still firmly locked on the unforgiving white linoleum. “Stop! Stop. S’il te plaît. Please.” He does, and she takes her chance. “I-I do not know what we can do. I do not know. I only know…” Searching, scrambling, trying not to take too long even when battling tears. “I only know that… that I am hurting very badly, and w-when you are yelling like that, I… I cannot breathe.” Anyone focused on the technicalities would argue that she doesn’t have to. But that’s not what matters. They both know that certainly isn’t what matters. “I know that I am afraid.” Of what? Best not to specify. “And so I cannot talk like this right now. Please.” Finally, the point of the matter is reached, an assertion that is perhaps too daring, but one that feels like her only choice. “If you cannot stop, I would like for you to… to go. To leave.” An aching jaw is set and wide eyes finally lift before she says her point more firmly. “Either stop or leave. Please.”

What he feared most was becoming Daniel, or at least enough of a copy of him to hurt her, to scare her, to rip open old wounds. His empathy had gone away with his undeath, but oh, did he really need it to see the way that his anger affected her? The way she stiffened when the nurse left, the way she flinched at the tone of his voice, and worst of all, the way she begged. If the floor could have swallowed him up then and there, dragged him to hell where he so clearly belonged, he would have gone gladly to pay for this sin. There was nothing in the world he loved as dearly as his wife and here she was, begging him to stop or leave, eyes full of tears and hands shaking. His own eyes go wide at the sight of her, his hands reaching for the edge of the wall, as if trying to get closer to her in a way that wasn’t threatening. And still she flinched, which he understood, and yet...did that not mean he in his anger was enough like Daniel to trigger those old fears? God, he would rather die permanently than be that person. He had intended to kneel in front of her, but instead he fell, knees crashing to the floor.

“You’re afraid of me. My god, Lielie, I would...I would rather die again than make you afraid of me. I would suffer anything gladly, any punishment I deserve, than do something that makes you afraid of me.” Gabriel said softly, not quite able to look up at her just yet. Instinctively he knew not to reach for her, not to touch her hand, and it wasn’t as if he deserved such a comfort, did he? Not yet. Perhaps not ever. “I don’t know what to do either and I just...you’re hurting, he’s hurting you over and over, and I don’t know what to do. But that doesn’t excuse raising my voice, Lielie. I’m so sorry.” The bloody tears were something he was never quite going to get used to, but there they were, sliding down his own cheeks as he looked up at his wife. He would stay on his knees, the supplicant asking forgiveness from a wounded goddess, he would let her choose, he...well, arguably he was being a tad dramatic. But that was hereditary, and this was a time for such a thing. Strong feelings, strong reactions. “You shouldn’t have to live like this, Lielie. You are so strong, so kind, so beautiful inside and out. You are the greatest thing that ever could have happened to me, and I swore to love you, to honor you, to protect you. And I can’t, and that...” Gabe let out a halting sigh, shaking his head at the very futility of their struggle. “I wish I could. So, so much. ”

[rob-pattinson]

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