A/N: The season was over too quick! I hope we can all raise-awareness about this show so it gets renewed. Don't worry – I'll keep writing fanfiction about this show until it comes back. Here's a short little chapter for your reading pleasure. Thank you guys so much for your reviews – I've gotten some of the sweetest responses from last chapter, and I love you all for them.
Disclaimer: I made a wish that these characters were mine, but my fairy godmother wasn't around to hear it.
Rated: T
Chapter Ten - Payback
Gabriel finally claimed those lips he'd been dreaming about since the morning. Sure, they'd kissed a few times already that day, but that was always under the pretense of cover. Much like when they'd woken up after sunrise that day, one partner was on top of the other in the bed, lips relaxing against each other.
Riley was leaning over him, trapped between his mouth and his hand in her hair. She told herself she couldn't move because she couldn't exactly use her hands or feet, but knew it wasn't quite true. Really, she could've extracted herself if she wanted to, but she figured it was best to just let Gabriel keep going. No good reason to stop him – she could wait to yell at him after.
Gabriel found the situation to be quite compromising as Riley was laying on top of him, her mouth fused to his. At first, she'd stiffened when his hand had brought her down. After a moment, she gave in when he stopped punishing her with his mouth and started really kissing her, too. All her soft curves were pushing up against his hard ones, and he tried with great effort not to groan. She fitted too perfectly into his arms, and he was loving every minute of it.
When she lifted her head a few minutes later than she'd originally planned to let the kiss go, they were both breathing a bit harder. Riley swallowed, trying to remember why she was mad with him. Why did he always have to go and distract her?
"What was that for?" she asked, trying to sound more confident than she felt. Riley was hyper-aware of every movement Gabriel made now because there was zero space between them. She felt him shift uncomfortably for a few seconds before daring to smirk at her once more.
"My mouth slipped," he breathed out. He had no good excuse other than the fact that she looked incredibly kissable when she'd been hovering over him.
"So your hand did too, then?" she accused, giving a nudge to the appendage in question. His hand slipped out of her hair slowly, teasing the ends of her hair as he did so. She repressed a shiver and held her suspicious look.
A knowing smile returned her glare, though. He tilted his head and raised his eyebrows at her. "You're one to talk, Riley."
"What do you mean?" She squinted at him for a second and realized where her hands were. She swore at her lotion-covered hands that had somehow ended up gripping his shoulders and staining his shirt.
"Not a word," she commanded with a glare.
"I didn't say anything," Gabriel chimed. He did help her sit up, though, making sure her legs were still wrapped safely in the towel so the lotion didn't smear all over the blankets.
Riley inhaled sharply when Gabriel started taking off his shirt. She let her eyes wander south for a moment before his teasing eyes grabbed her attention again. His partner had been eyeing him not only appreciatively, but a little warily. "Relax. I just need to change my shirt," he stated.
An odd look suddenly crossed her face as Gabriel turned away from her, but he brushed it off and briefly left the bed to soak his shirt in the sink. The laundry room in the lodge was closed by now, so he figured a quick soak of the fabric would suffice to clean it. When he returned to grab another shirt, he noticed the uncomfortable frown still on his partner's face. Instantly, he knew something was bothering her, and it wasn't the kiss. She had a special glare reserved for Gabriel whenever she had a problem with him, and this look was not the same.
He would bet anything that she was starting to feel the effects of the poison ivy, and instantly felt a pang of sympathy. He hated to see her sick – not because it made her weak, but because he knew she couldn't do anything about it and it made her feel vulnerable. He racked his brain for something that might cheer her up.
He disappeared to the kitchen in a flash and came back holding something behind his back. Riley was sitting glumly in the same spot he'd left her, only he could see that her eyes were shining and that she wasn't feeling very good. Her pink-coated hands were clenched, and Gabriel guessed she was trying hard not scratch her skin. It must feel awful, Gabriel thought.
Riley didn't try to cover up her apprehension as her partner came around and sat on the side of the bed next to her, wearing a soft smile meant to placate her. "How are you feeling?"
"Uncomfortable in my own skin," she started. Gabriel hated the way her voice broke. "When you went into the bathroom I just started to get this weird feeling in my legs, and then my arms. It only just started, but the itchiness is already becoming slightly unbearable."
She was biting her lip now, and he could tell that she was getting increasingly upset the more she tried to ignore her affliction. With a tranquil voice, he tried to calm her down. "Your medicine just hasn't set it yet. I know you're trying to resist scratching, and that's the right thing to do - you don't want scars." He waited until she nodded. "But that's why I brought you something to help."
A flicker of hope crossed her features as he brought the oven mitts out from behind his back. A quiet laugh escaped her lips as he slipped them over her hands. Using one newly mitt-covered hand, Riley tried to discreetly wipe at the corner of her eye. Gabriel caught the movement, though. Thinking of nothing better he could do, he pulled her as gently as he could into a hug.
She was surprised at first, but accepted it gratefully as he lingered. "Thanks, Gabriel." Riley said it earnestly when she sat back, and she was extremely grateful that he knew how to make her feel better.
"You looked like you needed it," he replied quietly. He was overcome with the strangest feeling of protectiveness over her. It made no sense; she was hired to protect him, for Pete's sake. But who was her protector? As Riley's partner, he wanted – no, needed to take over that role.
Gabriel released her and moved around to sit on his side of the bed. "It's been a long day, and I think it'd help if you got some sleep and drank some more water." He waited until she rolled her eyes and picked up the glass on her nightstand. "There you go."
"Yes, Mom," she mocked. Secretly, she felt a twinge of appreciation for his concern over her well-being. At least she could scratch her skin without worrying about scarring it now. She couldn't ask for a better person to help her get through the day, she supposed. Once the glass was downed, she tilted her head towards him. "Happy?"
"Very," Gabriel beamed. "Now, I have to ask you something. Would you mind if I stayed in the room tonight, just to make it easier for me to help you if you need anything?"
She crossed her arms. "Do I have any choice in the matter?"
"No."
Riley rolled her eyes. "Then why did you ask?"
"Out of politeness," he shrugged.
"That makes no sense."
"Doesn't have to," he scoffed. "Are the meds helping at all yet?"
Riley considered the question for a moment. "I think they're just keeping the itching tolerable at this point. I hope I can just sleep it off." Adjusting her blankets overtop of her legs so that her ankles stuck out, she nestled down on her pillows, facing Gabriel.
He turned off the television and did the same, shutting off the light so that the room was lit only by moonlight.
He and his partner both lay on the bed, silent, listening to the sound of a few owls calling to each other in the woods. The location of the cabin was really quite serene and calming. Never had Gabriel been out in the woods for so long, excepting when he was on the occasional mission. He didn't usually get to take time for himself, much less have a few days to relax and just appreciate the nature that was surrounding them as it was now. The night sounds were lulling him to the point where he could easily fall asleep at any moment. However, something else was keeping him up.
That something else was the sound of his partner's breathing. He would have thought that she'd be falling asleep quicker, as she was much more tired than he was and the Benadryl she took was supposed to cause extreme drowsiness. He couldn't see her face in the dim light filtering through the windows, but saw the steady rise and fall of the silhouette of her chest.
"Riley?" he whispered. She didn't answer at first, so he called her name again.
"Hmm?" she answered. He could hear that her voice was, in fact, laced with sleepiness. How was she staying awake?
"Why can't you fall asleep?" He'd asked the question in a slightly louder tone than before, shattering the silence of the room and waking himself up a bit more in the process. Riley turned away from him to stare up at the ceiling.
"I don't know," she sighed. "My mind just feels like it's racing, you know?" Riley's mind was whirring as it had been for the past few days, and she needed a way to just shut out all of the thoughts threatening to consume her. Especially the voices that were warning her of willingly allowing Gabriel to sleep next to her so often.
"Well, you'll just have to distract yourself," he said rather breezily. He didn't pry and try to guess what was bothering her, knowing she already had a lot on her plate. "Riley, what's your favorite color?"
"My what?" She rolled on her side back towards him and realized he was trying to distract her. "Um, green?"
"Like the color of your eyes," he remarked softly. "Where did you grow up?"
Riley gave him a hard stare, even though Gabriel couldn't see her. For a second, all she could think about was that he'd noticed her eyes, but she quickly got a grip. "Gabriel, you already know all about me from the chip. I appreciate your trying to distract me, but it's not doing any good when I know that you already know all the answers."
"I don't know all the answers," he insisted, "but fine. I'll ask about stuff I don't already know." He hesitated, though, and tapped a finger on his chin.
"Gabriel!" Riley's eyes widened and she swatted him with her mitt. "Stop what you're doing right now. I know you're searching my entire file and trying to see what you don't know," she paused, shuttering, "…as if that doesn't already make me uncomfortable enough…"
"Ow," Gabriel muttered, rubbing his arm where she'd smacked him. He was hoping he hadn't let on to what he was doing with the chip, but supposed Riley was right about one thing. "That's sort of true. There's not much I don't already know. But I still have questions. For example, why in the world did you go out with that guy in college? You know, the guy you sent that email to with the picture of you-"
That was as far as he got before Riley clubbed him in the shoulder again forcefully and practically shouted at him. "Stop looking at the picture, Gabriel!"
He could see the silhouette of Riley rolling over and completely facing away from him in embarrassment.
"What? It's a lovely picture. I only looked at it the one time, and that was way back when we first met," Gabriel explained. It was a true statement, but he knew he'd never be able to get the memory of the picture out of his head no matter how badly Riley wanted him to forget it. "Come on, don't be mad. You already knew I'd seen it before – I even outright told you."
She was silent though, save for a low answering growl, so he reached over to grasp her waist and turn her over to face him again. She was somewhat closer, but he didn't dare invade her space for the time being. The whole point of this was to distract her from her worrisome thoughts, not provoke them further. He settled for keeping a hand on her forearm so that she wouldn't turn from him again.
"It's still embarrassing. Do you even know what it's like to have someone know every detail about you and you know next to nothing about them? Not that I want to invade your privacy at all, I just would've liked to have the chance to tell you something about myself that you can't already figure out." She had told him all I one breath, and he couldn't blame her for her frustration.
"Well, if it's any consolation, I'll try and be a bit more open myself. You can ask me just about anything, if you want," he suggested. He hoped she'd be delicate, though. He didn't exactly like talking about his past, but he wanted to earn her trust so that she felt more comfortable around him. They were partners, after all. Trust was key in their relationship.
Riley nodded and pretended to be in deep thought. From where she was on the bed, facing away from the moonlight, she could just about make out a worrisome expression on Gabriel's face. Her ears picked up a quiet swallow, and she had to keep from laughing because she knew exactly what she was doing to him.
Gabriel felt her pulse leap for a moment and guessed she had reached a conclusion. She finally let out the laugh she was concealing and asked, "What's your favorite color?"
His whole body seemed to deflate and he let out a breath that he didn't know he'd been holding. A smile tugged at his lips when he answered, "Blue."
"Like the color of your eyes," Riley replied in a voice that mimicked his earlier one. She continued to ask him simple questions along this line, like his favorite song, favorite animal, etc. In asking him questions, Riley realized that she knew quite a bit about Gabriel already and had picked up on a lot in their time working together. All too soon, she ran out of questions for him.
She lay silent next to Gabriel, taking comfort in the warm fingers wrapped gently around her forearm where the mitt ended. Neither of them really noticed when his fingertips gained a mind of their own and started skimming over her, tracing patterns from her elbow and back down again. She felt her eyelids go heavy, her brain starting to get foggy.
"I see you're finally getting tired there, partner. Feeling good?" he whispered. He relaxed immensely because her breathing slowed and she'd stopped talking, unintentionally letting Gabriel know that he'd finally calmed her.
The low hum of Gabriel's voice was soothing her to sleep further, though she couldn't really focus on what he was saying. She was losing consciousness, so her mouth took over for her brain, which was on the brink of exhaustion.
"Never better," she mumbled. She seemed pretty coherent still, but her appearance suggested otherwise. He smiled at her answer anyways, though, appreciating the fact that she still remembered their inside joke.
"Are you awake?"
"Yes," she answered, though Gabriel could tell she was close to slurring her words.
He leaned over and whispered in her ear to check, saying, "Where are we Riley?"
"In your apartment," she scoffed. This close, he could tell that her eyes were shut. At least he confirmed that Riley wasn't quite awake, but why was she dreaming they were in Gabriel's apartment?
"What are we doing?" he asked.
"I dunno. On couch," was all Gabriel could make out. What were they doing on the couch? It was very important that he figure this out now. He tensed though, when she added, "Chris is here."
He prompted her to answer his earlier question further, and when she took a deep breath, he almost thought she'd woken up. After a long moment, she spoke up again. "Trying to sleep. Why?"
"Just wondering." Gabriel took a deep breath as well. He grinned then and had an idea. Time for payback.
"So, you dream about me a lot?" he started, and saw her nod her head. "Admit it, Riley. You like kissing me as much as I like kissing you."
"I don't like kissing you," was all he heard next.
An oddly cold feeling came over him, and he leaned away from her ear and back down on his own pillow.
He shouldn't have felt sad. Really, he shouldn't have. It was his own fault for trying to mess with her in her sleep. If he didn't want to know her true feelings, he really shouldn't have asked her about them.
He rolled away, facing the other side of the room so that he wasn't forced to watch the beauty lying next to him fall asleep. He laid there, fidgeting. Supposedly people told the truth much easier when they sleep-talked. But…he really, really wanted Riley to be lying.
Maybe he shouldn't go off of what she'd said. After all, maybe she wasn't quite in her right mind. The thoughts turned in his head, confusing him because he couldn't decide if her words were true or not.
He was aware that the cabin was silent again, and the owls had stopped making their calls. Riley started making sounds under her breath, almost like she was trying to speak to him again. Gabriel was going to ignore her, but he heard his name being mumbled and reluctantly turned back to her.
"Not you," she was saying. "I don't like you, I like him." Gabriel frowned again and rolled right back over with a scowl on his face.
It made matters worse when he felt Riley come closer to him, cozying up against him and burying her face into his back. She was still muttering nonsense, to his displeasure, but he couldn't bring himself to move away from the sudden warmth spreading all over from where she was pressed against him.
"Gabriel," she called, muffling her words against his shirt.
"What?" he ground out.
"Make Chris go away," she muttered.
He waited a beat. "Why?"
"He keeps asking me if I like him."
Gabriel froze. Wait, so…if she thought she had been talking to Chris…
"What did you tell him?" Gabriel stammered.
"That I liked you instead, obviously," she scoffed. She buried her nose further into his shoulder blade and tucked her hands between their bodies, held tightly against her chest.
He was still frozen, eyes wide with shock. He knew he was the one who was going to have a hard time calming his mind now. Gabriel didn't know what to do with himself, and he felt like Riley really wouldn't have liked it if she knew what she was saying.
Gabriel tried hard to brush it off and just go to sleep. Anyone could like him instead of Chris; it was easy to hate that pompous, self-absorbed jerk. As desperately as he tried to convince himself that the comment really didn't mean much, he still was filled with unsteadiness at his partner's admission.
It was a pleasant kind of unsteadiness, though, and it left him falling asleep with a smile on his face.
A/N: SUPER sorry this chapter is posting super late. I had a tough couple days last week and I tried to write, but it seems I could only produce this short chapter. I hope you beautiful readers aren't too disappointed, but I'll hopefully be able to write more next weekend.
Also, an incredibly nice guest reviewer pointed out to me that Riley's eyes are actually green, and I'd like to apologize on behalf of my entire existence for that. I always hate it when authors get that stuff wrong. Thank you so much, dear! I fixed it ASAP.
Thank you, diana_of_wales for your support of my story. I really hope you're having a better week too and that you're having some good luck. :D