7

You Give Pinot A Bad Name

February 18, 2006 - 26 days until 'Patient Zero' is discovered

1146 Trenton Place Apt 1B, Queens, NY 11011. Claire looked at the address that Gabriel had provided for her again from her seat in the back of the cab. Not that she really needed to know it since the tracking device she had planted on his coat had firmly remained in a single location throughout the day, but she found herself inexplicably nervous. Discounting the fact that it was Sylar, she was about to be left alone in the home of an adult male whom had made his romantic interest in her known. Well, she wouldn't truly be left alone. Noah and the Haitian were going to be patiently waiting in the Primatech van at a reasonable distance to avoid suspicion but within range for a speedy retrieval should she need it. Even breathing exercises helped to calm her racing heart rate and she tried to tell herself that the anxiety she felt was solely due to the person she was going to be with, but the truth of the matter was that she was a fish stranded on the beach - completely out of her element. Claire had never faced a similar prospect before; at least not one relating to any man that wasn't an immediate family member.

She wasn't necessarily fearful that Gabriel would try to harm her or force himself on her, especially after becoming aware that she was armed. But what were they supposed to do together? Would he be content to simply talk, or would he be expecting something else? What if he wanted to kiss her, or… touch her? Claire swallowed a hard chunk of nerves knowing that she was in no way prepared to go far enough to please a twenty-eight-year-old man. She wasn't sure that she would know how if she were.

The cab pulled up to their destination and she drew out the payment and thanking of the driver looking for any excuse to procrastinate, but after that task had been dealt with all there was left was to follow through. None of the passing tenants in the housing complex gave her a second glance as she made her way up to Gabriel's floor. Claire paused outside of the door to apartment 1B with her fist poised to knock but unable to complete the motion. Another door just down the hall opened and a man appearing to be slightly older than she but probably still of college age exited, glancing in her direction and back to shutting his door, and then back to her again in a rapid double-take.

"Hello," he greeted flirtatiously. "What's a fine thing like you doing all the way over there? If you were looking for me, you got the wrong address cupcake."

Claire snorted contemptuously at the not-so-subtle advance. Another one of those. Are all guys wired to be so egotistical? "Wasn't looking for you, cupcake," she shot back with an eye roll of blatant disdain.

"Well, I'm pretty sure you ain't lookin' for ol' Gabe either."

"As a matter of fact, I am."

"Wait, wait," he laughed, seeming to find her insistence amusing. "You must be the hot sister, right? Because no nerd is complete without one."

What the hell is with everyone trying to call me his sister? She ignored his lingering presence, suddenly finding the ambition to knock. Gabriel must have been pacing nearby in waiting because he immediately flung the door wide open with a blinding smile. "Claire. Hey. Come on in." The guy down the hall remained with a comically confused expression on his face so she didn't resist the urge to stick her tongue out at him in a fit of immaturity before entering.

Gabriel's apartment was more neatly kempt than any bachelor's pad had a right to be. Of course, after visiting Gray and Sons on multiple occasions Claire couldn't bother to be surprised. Every surface was a gleaming example of sterility with the sole exception being that of the small table in the meager accommodations that the kitchen area provided. There he had set out a fanciful red dining cloth to compliment a vanilla candle and a slim vase of fragrant apple blossoms ranging in hues from a soft white to delicate pinks. "I hope you like them," he said after taking note of her visual favor to the flowers.

"They're really pretty."

"I picked them out because they reminded me of you." His tone took on a shy, boyish quiet quality. "They're, um, smoothly textured with attractive symmetrics. And they, uh, smell nice." He helped to slide her coat off of her shoulders and turned his back on her for a moment to hang the garment on a rack by the door with a telltale flushing creeping over the back of his neck, mumbling something under his breath that sounded like "soft hair". Continuing to be a level of gentleman that Claire had only ever seen in cheesy movies. he pulled her chair out for her before dashing to retrieve two plates of lasagna from the oven.

"I wasn't sure what you like to drink so I kind of got a bit of everything. There's some bottled water, tea, Coke, Pepsi, or a, um, really nice Pinot Noir that I found…"

Oh no, not again. Claire fought herself to remain calm under the focus of his jubilant eyes but openly failed to do so. Gabriel's smile deflated and he quirked his head to the side again reading her facial expression and nervous body language. "Pinot is a no. Got it."

"No, it's fine, really," she tried to assure but the mild tremble in her voice betrayed her and he quickly spirited the bottle out of sight. "I guess I'll take a Coke then." He smiled faintly and poured a frosty glass of the requested beverage for her. "This all looks really nice," she piped up, surprising herself with the honesty of the compliment.

"Thanks." Gabriel took his seat across from her and idly poked at the food in deep thought occasionally glancing up at her to further study her reactions. "Claire, I don't want to be too forward, but…"

"What?"

"I, um, I really hope I'm not being rude, and if you don't want to tell me that's okay." They traded a long moment of locked questioning eyes. "What happened to you?"

"What do you mean?" she asked while finding an excuse to fiddle with her intricately folded napkin.

"Sometimes…" he leaned back in his chair to look at her with Sylar's calculating intensity. "Sometimes it's like certain things trigger a bad memory for you or something. The way you flinch away if I get too close to you, or little things like the wine… Did somebody hurt you, Claire?"

You. "There was a guy." It was hard to concentrate under the critical weight of the eyes burning into her so she looked away. "He did a lot of terrible things to me and people I loved." Gabriel came forward conspiratorially in hopes of urging her to elaborate. "He, um… He killed people." A tear welled up in her eye and she quickly blinked it away. "He attacked me a couple of times, and had this sick fantasy that we somehow belonged together. And he, um, forced me to drink a damn Pinot with him while he touched me and told me how everyone I cared about was going to die." The flood gates opened and she choked back sobs through a swollen throat while the tears fell freely down her cheeks. She had told the people that mattered in her life what had happened, but never really talked about it, and perhaps in spite of the identity of the person that she shared those scarring experiences with, it felt unexpectedly cathartic.

Gabriel chewed on the inside of his lip desperately searching for something to say or do. His hand hovered lightly over hers wanting to offer comfort but afraid of spooking her after such a profound revelation. "He… He didn't… rape you, did he?" He instantly regretted asking, finding that he didn't really want a confirmation of his deepest fears for the girl.

"No. Not in the physical sense anyways. It wasn't like that." Claire wiped away the moist trails leading from her eyes missing out on her companion's inaudible sigh of relief.

"I'm sorry if my asking upset you." Like making her cry wasn't obvious. Way to go idiot.

"It's okay," she mustered a sad smile. "It, um, actually felt kind of good to say it out loud. Like getting rid of something ugly."

"Like I said, you don't have to tell me stuff if you don't want to. But if you ever do want to talk about it…"

"Thanks." She took a healthy bite of her lasagna. "Wow, this is great."

"Glad you like it." The corner of his mouth turned upward again. "It's my mother's recipe." Gabriel felt oddly satisfied despite the emotional drain. Claire had opened up to him in a very personal way, even if it was by plodding through some rather dark skeletons in her proverbial closet. He could almost feel his attachment to the girl growing and hoped that the bond was building mutually.

After dinner Claire wandered into his living room while Gabriel finished cleaning up. Most of the walls were lined with shelving for books from floor to ceiling creating the most eclectic if not eccentric collection she had ever seen. Everything from Shakespeare and Faulkner, to the entire Encyclopedia Britannica and instructional manuals were present, and when combined with the gentle quiet of the place made for a cozy library atmosphere. As her fingers aimlessly roamed the spines of a section of medically related texts her eyes took in the lack of personal decoration within the space. The place may have been his house, but it wasn't being inhabited as though the occupant considered it home.

She didn't exactly hear him enter the living room behind her, but Claire felt his presence watching her inspect the area. "This is some collection you've got going." She turned around to see him looking after her self-consciously with his hands jammed into his pockets where they continued to fidget. "I can't really tell how you've got it organized though."

"Oh, it's um, sectioned by genre in alphabetical order and then filtered through publication date, author, and personal preference… I like to read a lot." Claire pulled out a copy of an advanced engine mechanics text. "And learn things," he added with a shy smile.

"And fix things?" she laughed when the next book she selected covered plumbing expertise.

"Yeah. I have to know how stuff works. It drives me crazy until I figure it out. Kind of makes my skin crawl." He took note of the downward curve of her lips as they sank into a concealed frown and the distanced look in her eyes. "I guess some people would call it a personality flaw."

"So what's with the plastic furniture?" she asked looking to move on to another topic of discussion. Gabriel looked over his couch and chair covered in the clear sheeting.

"Have you ever seen a picture of Dermatophagoides farinae?" He made a distasteful face. "My mother showed me one as a kid. It looked like an alien. Scared the hell out of me. The plastic protects the upholstery from deposits of dead skin cells that they eat." A little shiver ran down his back.

"Gross." I suddenly have a whole new appreciation for my Grandma's house.

Claire stepped into the bathroom and took her time to snoop around a little more. Searching through Gabriel's things was becoming a habit driven more out of curiosity than a fear of danger. Except maybe when she found his straight razor. Her eyes widened considerably at the bright gleam of the blade, sharpened to perfection. She absent-mindedly ran a finger across the length of it and pulled the appendage back to see a bone deep gouge healing. Cleaning up her mess as neatly as possible, Claire came back into the living room to find her evening's companion relaxed on the couch sipping a cup of coffee. She spared a sideways glance into his bedroom on the way over to him, spying a single twin sized bed made up so tightly she imagined being able to bounce quarters off of the sheets.

"Decaf," he mentioned, indicating a matching cup of coffee resting on a coaster. "If you're anything like me it's probably not a good idea to get wound up this late."

Have you ever stopped to think about how much we have in common, Claire? She involuntarily shuddered. "Is coffee a no too?" he asked with concern having seen her twitchy reaction.

"It's fine," she promised, taking a seat on the opposite end of the couch and feeling a bit relieved when he didn't try to move closer. Claire discreetly stole glances of him from the corners of her eyes. All of her prior worries about possible physical interactions had been for naught. Gabriel seemed perfectly content to sit quietly.

Of course she could never know the thoughts racing through his mind in all directions at once. Curious to know if her legs felt as silky as they appeared to be, but chiding himself for thinking about such things after she had disclosed information to do with previous assaults. Remembering the soft press of her lips, but willing himself to keep a reasonably placid surface against the acidic churning of anxiety in his stomach. His experience with the female gender was limited at best and he wasn't exactly confident in his ability to intimately please her even if she wanted him to. Where did I put the Tums again?

"Your hand."

"Huh?" Gabriel snapped out of his reverie.

"Your hand," she repeated, setting her coffee down and scooting a little closer to inspect the left set of knuckles. Claire gingerly turned his hand over in her own studying the faint traces of residual swelling and darker pigments of bruises. "Is that from the other night?"

"Yes," he admitted sheepishly, subconsciously leaning in towards her.

"So much for minimum force," she teased lightly. Gabriel ignored the heat of a blush rising under the skin of his face in an effort to find similar evidence of their experience marring her skin. Claire jerked away a bit when the hand she wasn't holding reached out to brush against her neck.

"I thought for sure you would be bruised up too. The way that guy had you by the throat…" He had to look away from her as he choked back the flaring of his temper over the memory. "You're lucky."

"It takes a little bit more than that to hurt me." When he turned back to look at her again he was briefly startled by the close proximity of her face to his own. Her brows were creased in deep contemplation as neither party moved away. Gabriel was the bug on the slide of her microscope again, but that time around she seemed more intrigued by the specimen than disgusted by it. "It's getting late. I should go," she finally spoke up, retracting her form.

"Okay." Gabriel jumped up to get her coat for her torn between nearly equal amounts of disappointment and relief.

"Thank you for dinner. It was wonderful." She smiled in a way that put a twinkle in her eyes when he handed her the flowers. "And for these."

"It, um, was nice to see you again." He fumbled with the door for a moment before taking a step out into the hall with her.

"Hey! It's Gabey and his hot sister!"

"Steve," Gabriel greeted politely through gritted teeth. The obnoxious neighbor that Claire had met earlier was returning just as she was ready to depart.

She was prepared to come up with a bitter retort to jab back with, but found something much more devious coming to mind. Claire took a long stern look at the guy referred to as "Steve" and then grabbed a fist full of Gabriel's shirt, roughly pulling him downward so that she could place a hand on either side of his face and press their lips together. Had she been paying any more attention to the neighbor she would have seen his expressions shifting between confusion, distaste, and finally defeat before he retreated into his own apartment to leave them alone.

Poor Gabriel's heart could have stopped beating for all he was aware of any reality beyond their kiss, and Claire seemed to have forgotten how to breathe among other things. It started out as one lingering touch between them but as his lips parted in silent shock another smaller kiss was added. He contributed the next allowing his hands to rest on her back. And the next became her turn, each giving and taking in sync without thought. Until her eyes fluttered open to remind her of what she was doing and with whom. Startled and short of breath they each bade the other a flustered farewell.

Claire stalked through the building in a daze, unable to reconcile with herself what the hell just happened. Before making the call for a pick up from her father however, she took a moment to smell the apple blossoms that Gabriel had gifted her with, a small smile spreading over her lips without her permission to do so.

Gabriel leaned back against his door in a mental haze, recalling every connection their mouths had made, the smooth skin of her face that he had brushed against, the soft curves and pressures of her lips, the warmth of her hands palming his jaw, the smell of her hair and the flowers that she had continued to hold, the heat that had radiated outward from her body… Cold shower. Very, very, very cold shower.

To be continued...