DISCLAIMER: Heroes so owns you! Sadly, only Tim Kring can own Heroes.

This and the beginning of the next chapter are what you'd call... T-rated. Sorry if you don't like it, but I'm not explicit. Your eyes won't be burned, I promise. Unless you go swimming in gasoline and then go out for a smoke, but I don't think your eyes would matter that much if you're enveloped in flame.

Drop a review, if you please. If not, I'm hardcore. I'll deal. Meaning I'll hunt you down with a machete... hehehe...

Enjoy!

Chapter Three

Memorizing

"You want some bacon?"

Gabriel practically frothed at the idea. "Lenore, I haven't eaten in four days. I'd assassinate Ghandi for some bacon."

"So that's a yes?"

"Stop torturing me! Yes! Bacon! Now!"

Lenore laughed and closed the fridge, the cold meat in her hands. "Normally I'd offer something a little more low-maintenance," she explained, fishing out a skillet from the cupboard, "but my cousin's wife is a chef, and I can't pronounce half the stuff in that fridge, so eating it's out of the question."

After Starbucks, they'd agreed to go for a walk through New York, having gone several blocks when it began snowing harshly. It being rush hour and the subway being at least a half hour walk without the snow, Gabriel decided to ditch going home and take up Lenore's offer to wait it out at her apartment for a while. In the meantime, he was ravenous and Lenore seemed, in general, to like eating (though it didn't show in her figure), so she'd taken it upon herself to whip up a dazzling feast mainly comprised of Ramen noodles, bacon, and grape juice. He was a secret connoisseur of grape juice, usually a humiliating fact, but Lenore didn't seem at all bothered it when he told her. Ever since the kiss at Starbucks three hours ago, they'd reached a sort of comfortable territory that most people reach weeks or even months into a relationship.

He leaned against the marble counter top, gazing out the window. All he could see was white out there. But then again, they were eleven stories up. Maybe it was less harsh further down, closer to the gas fumes and endless body heat that usually melt snow. Gazing on the other side of the window, inside the room, was a sight just as white, only less cold. He didn't know how rich people could stand having kitchens so white. Personally, he felt like a lab rat. "I always wanted a green kitchen," he remarked, mostly to himself, but Lenore was listening.

"Green?" Her voice was surprised over the chattering spittle of the bacon. "Why? Green is the color of mold; you want a moldy kitchen, Gabe? Hardly what you'd call sanitary for the one room in your house devoted to food."

He laughed, a sound he didn't make often. It sounded strange and alien to him, but the rolling noise it made in his throat was pleasant. He decided he liked laughing as he did just that, wrapping his arms around Lenore's waist from behind and kissing her on the top of her head. "Green just seemed like a nice color for a kitchen. I don't even like it that much."

"What do you like?"

"Gray." Like his last name, but he didn't tell her that. Last names were so formal, and he liked having all that aside. "Not white, not black, but a place in the middle. Nothing is exact, nothing 100 on either side, but a nice no man's land. You're always safe with gray." He took a sip of his grape juice, hoping it didn't stain his mouth purple. "But it's too drab for a whole room."

"I know what you mean," she said, flipping over a piece of bacon on the stove. "Ever since I was a little girl, I hated yellow. Too in-your-face cheery. Plus it made me nervous. But I always wanted a yellow kitchen despite that, and now I have one back in Philly. I honestly don't know how Gillian can stand having this kitchen; it's hell just cleaning up after."

Gabriel absently flicked a speck of dust away from the counter. "So why are we talking about kitchens?"

"You brought it up," she laughed. "Maybe the fact that we're in one had something to do with that, but we won't be in here for long." The bacon was now finished, piled up on two plates with an equal share of Ramen on each. "I insist we eat in the living room. I've got a phobia about this white everywhere, but Gillian at least had the foresight to have a stain-resistant couch."

Stain-resistant it was, and black. Ideal. Very comfortable, too, he noted, as he settled in it next to Lenore, in very unseasonable shorts and T-shirt. She'd taken off the waistcoat and purple socks, the parasol set down at the door. Without them, she looked very... normal. Not normal/boring – she was still fascinating – but looking very much like any other girl he might run into on the street.

Barefoot, she sat cross-legged and glanced at the television. It was paused on a frame of what he assumed was Cats... everyone on the screen was in painted Spandex and had a tail.

"Research?" he asked.

"I've been watching it nonstop for two weeks," she explained. "See him in the black, over there?" At Gabriel's head shaking, she sighed and pressed fast forward on the remote, then paused it again on a better shot of the black cat, doing one of those insane jumping jacks that involves touching toes midair. "That's Mister Mistoffelees."

He laughed again, enjoying the vibration of his throat. "If you think I could do that, you'd better think on that some more." Though the black cat, smiling through a face of thick make-up, was very familiar. With a few more moments of staring, Gabriel realized who it reminding him of: himself. Lenore's remark back in Starbucks was right. If he removed the horn-rimmed glasses from his own face, he might look a trifle like that.

Lenore seemed to notice that, too, and crawled over to him from her side of the couch. She was extremely slow, making her seem all the more sensuous, which didn't prove fortunate for Gabriel. Having a sexy woman prowl over to him was doing strange things to his mind. In the pit of his stomach, it felt like someone was holding a match to a stick of dynamite; the threat of the explosion caused him to feel the blood pumping against his skin from the underside, pulsing in places he hadn't felt a pulse before: his left shoulder blade, the sole of his foot, behind his ear.

Having taken her time, Lenore now was perched directly in front of him. The fact that he could almost feel her knee touching his could have spurred a stallion, had it the same force of his heartbeat. She carefully leaned toward him and took off his glasses, folding them with care and glancing at the glass. "Bifocals?" she asked.

How he found his voice was a complete mystery. Inside, he was full of rubber bands stretched with tension; if she moved an inch closer, the touch she made might be able to pluck "Mary Had a Little Lamb" from the tight strings. "Vision's perfect from far away," he said, voice surprisingly level for the mess he was inside. "Just need them for reading, watchmaking."

She nodded and placed the glasses on the coffee table before them, but didn't look away once. The intensity of their eye contact make him dizzy, head swirling in a pool of sparkling sand. Her hands, small and delicate, held his face on either side as she looked over his face carefully. The place her hands met his flesh was buzzing with electricity that only Gabriel seemed to feel. "What are you doing?" he whispered.

"Memorizing you," she whispered back. He'd never noticed before how thrilling a whisper could be. Or how such a beautiful noise could make him so afraid and delirious at once. "I could never forget the way I feel around you, so I want to make sure I never forget your face, either."

Those words... they were so real. So alive. The strings inside his stomach, stretched nearly to the breaking point with nervous tension, were playing out a symphony from this touch. It took the courage of an army to reach his fingers up to that level and place them over hers. Gently, he pulled her white hands away from his face, relocating them on his shoulders. It was his turn. His eyes had been driven mad watching her work her magic, and had, in return, memorized plenty. They'd remember her no matter what, so he focused on what his lips would remember instead.

Everything he felt was as though put under a magnifying glass, his nerves sensing everything as if from the crest of an ocean wave, the brink at the top of a cliff. After the kiss broke, he chuckled, a laugh Lenore hadn't meant to spur this time. She, in fact, didn't even know what it was that had amused him so. "What?" she asked.

"You taste like grape juice," he whispered, and kissed her again. The top of her head, her eyelids, her nose, her lips, and further on in a path slowly descending. His insides were a concoction of lead and helium, flying and sinking in the same movement.

Gabriel Gray did not return home that night.