He wants to listen—-he does, he wants to stay here and listen and learn and accept. But it’s easier said than done. He’s also feeling an ache in his legs that want to take him to the nearest bar, tension in arms that make him want to throw punches, some desperate need to get this out of his system.
Gabriel wants to stay here as much as he wants to run and never look back and it’s tearing away at him, leaving him confused, uncertain; he was going to throw the fucking monster at him despite knowing that he’s so much more than that after their time together. Something heavy sits in his gut, then; guilt. He’s betrayed him but he’s trying to protect himself, and god, he doesn’t know what to do, he doesn’t know what to do.
For a moment, the hunter doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t thing he can even if he wanted to just then. He’s quiet, lips pursed, and he’s looking elsewhere because looking at Roman is too much, too intimate right now when he feels like he wants to walk way—-and it’s because he feels obligated to hunt him down but he can’t. He can’t.
He fucking can’t. He doesn’t want to—-but what has Roman done to survive for this long like this? The thought is shaken off, brushed aside.
Buried. It’ll be forgotten with some tequila.
❝ Tell me, ❞ he says, and it’s hesitant. ❝ Tell me everything. ❞
He runs his hand over his buzzed scalp, exhaling, even though he doesn’t need to. He thinks about this chance he’s been given. This one, single, solitary chance to make Gabriel understand so that he doesn’t lose him completely. He remembers the look in James’ eyes when he told him the truth of what he was.
It was one of horror and fascination.
Gabriel was different. He looked at him with so much hurt--
“It was... 1995. I was walking to meet my dealer when I was mugged by some psycho with a huge knife. He just... Cut me open and left me to die. I remember it like it was yesterday. Felt how hot my insides were when they spilled out of me,” he says softly, shaking his head. The memory makes him tremble. All the pain he’s suffered since then, had been under his control, totally self inflicted.
“And then I woke up. I woke up in some dingy hotel room with this fuckin’... guy who said he’d saved me. He told me I was alive again, and not to waste my second chance and I thought... I thought maybe I’d had a bad trip, that I’d dreamed it all, and then everything went sideways. It took about a week for me to realize what I was. My body started decaying. Weak, bruising, my vision started to go, one eye at a time so I... I followed my instincts and... And I did it again... And again... Because it was the only thing that I could do,” he takes a deep breath and covers his face with his hands before continuing.
“I tried to go for as long as I could, to just let myself rot away, but if I wait that long, I... I go into a frenzy, it’s like I can’t control my body anymore and it goes for the first person it sees. So I tried--”
The words got caught in his throat.
“I tried to kill myself. I wanted out. An ending. I set my apartment on fire with me inside. Burned myself alive, because I was convinced that if I did that, there’d be nothing of me left to come back... I woke up inside a morgue on a cold slab, whole again and ravenous. I cut my throat, and it made me hungry, I tried to overdose on pills and couldn’t even get a decent high. I tried for... for months and eventually I just... got too tired and gave up. I went back to my life like this was just... part of who I was now. I went back to acting and... and put off feeding as much as I could. I was choosy. And... And for a while it worked.”
“Someone tried to... tried to cure me, too but... I’m just stuck. Unfixable. And I can’t die.”
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