gabriel_tam | (no subject)

(no subject)

The room is fairly nice, all things considered. There are several chairs, a porta-cot set up discreetly against one wall for visitors that for one reason or another are reluctant to leave, and it's clear that whoever designed this particular private room in the first place intended to make it seem as warm and welcoming as possible.

Of course, given that it's a hospital, there's really only so much that can be done.

Currently, the hospital bed is tilted upwards at an angle, with the evident intention of making the patient comfortable. It seems to be working, at least a little, because Gabriel Tam is asleep.

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Galadan does.

Gabriel will hear the growl that emerges from the Wolflord's throat, teeth bared in a sudden sharp smile.

He is anything but pleased.

"Would you care to explain this, Senator? I'm afraid I've no clue who this 'R' is."

He has guesses, but that is far from the same thing.

"Yes, you do, actually."

Gabriel's voice may be rasping still, but his tone is bone-dry.

"You tore his throat out."

Every one of the Wolflord's muscles locks tight for only a fraction of a second.

He does not growl at all.

"Ah. That would explain why his scent extended through far more of the complex than I would have imagined."

His eyes are glacier-cold when he looks at Gabriel.

"I'll need to be more thorough next time."

"If you can. If anyone can."

Bleakly, and not without a hint of desperation. Gabriel's staring at his clenched fist.

"He's not exactly... mortal."

"I'm beginning to get that idea."

One corner of Galadan's lip curls in a silent snarl.

"How long have you known."

It isn't really a question.

"I don't know how to say. When I met him-- it was at Milliways."

Finally, he looks up, meeting the Wolflord's eyes.

"It-- he-- was different then."

"Was he."

Galadan's gaze does not waver, only burns with a fierce chill.

"How?"

"Given your ... background," Gabriel says, a touch dryly, "I'm not sure how familiar you are with the theology of this 'verse?"

"Familiar enough in certain respects."

His tone is crisp, sharp as a blade.

"I have been to Earth before, and some stories seem to span universes."

"Well, that'll help."

A pause.

"He... he was an angel. The angel of Vengeance."

"Was."

Galadan tastes the shape of the word in his mouth.

"And now?"

"Now, he's... whatever an angel becomes after a Fall."

There's a distinct emphasis on the last word.

Gabriel essays a slight shrug, wincing a little as he does.

"A-- a demon, I suppose."

Galadan's smile is brief and twisted.

"Now that I daresay I know something of--angel or not."

He's putting things together rapidly now, mind working furiously.

"And aside from his mandate, ostensibly, what else does that change?"

"His employer."

Those two words are flat and bitterly bleak.

"Who."

Galadan's reply is neither flat nor bleak, just stark and cold and utterly demanding.

This--this is what he needs to know.

Or a very great part of it, at the least.

"That's where it gets a little more complicated."

Gabriel passes his arm over his eyes, as if trying to wipe away fatigue.

The knuckles of his tightly-clenched hand are white from the force of his grip.

"Gabriel."

There is command in Galadan's voice, clear and sharply focused.

"Hedging ill becomes you."

"Oblige me by showing some patience, if you don't mind!" he snaps, only then looking up at Galadan again.

"It's difficult for me to explain."

Galadan's expression doesn't flicker a hair.

"You have not yet seen me impatient, Gabriel. But do go on in your own time. The worst would seem to be behind us, would it not?"

The arch of his eyebrow indicates his opinion of that sentiment very succinctly.

Very succinctly.

"Oh, I wouldn't trust to that."

A beat. When he speaks again, Gabriel's tone is steady, almost too much so.

"You know, some people might say the two of you have something in common."

"Might, only? Surely you know well enough to say for certain, Gabriel Tam."

"I do, actually. Or at least, I think I do."

Pain and difficulty breathing or no, his gaze is clear.

"The being he works for is, I suspect, much like the one named Maugrim that you once told me about."

Galadan's expression sharpens, grey eyes burning with a sudden fierce light.

"You would do better to pray to all your gods that that were not so."

Particularly if such a creature has turned its gaze toward Gabriel's own destruction.

"If not, he's the closest our 'verse is likely to know," Gabriel counters, wearily.

"Lucifer. Satan. He's got other names as well."

A beat.

"One of them is Nic Rosse."

There is a moment of cold silence.

Then--

"Is it."

Galadan quells the upswelling of rage at being left so uninformed, mind already cataloguing this new information, fitting more puzzle pieces into place.

His lip twists in what might, to the tutored eye, pass for ironic amusement.

"How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn. Appropriate."

He is not speaking solely of Lucifer.