tampered | log, ongoing;

'Curious', indeed, though she's heard enough on the Network -- both of this version and the past one she had first met -- to have pulled together at least some knowledge about him. She doesn't care that he's dangerous, not in the way other people would -- she's wary, of course, vaguely aware of the adrenaline and subconcious wiring to run if she must, but it's so much less fear than interest.

She rests her palms against the door for a moment before turning the latch and opening it -- the apartment is still a bit of a mess, pity that, but she's well enough put together, and she'll offer him a smile, wide and perfectly tuned to how she knows she's supposed to be. "Gabriel. Hello."

He matches it, feigning calm and confidence like he's so very good at doing now. "Good evening, Lucy. You look stunning, as usual. Are you ready for dinner? I'm glad to see no curses came in the way of it tonight, I was half-expecting one of those three-day-long ones."

It would have been awkward if he'd still been female, but he probably would've still shown up at her door. He's been wanting this for awhile.

He holds his arm out for her to take, much like a few days ago.

"Thank you--" -- she laughs a bit -- "--They don't usually do two in a row, though, and I'm sure they might pick a rather more exotic topic were they to carry on for that long." She steps down from the doorway, heels clicking on the ground, and takes his arm. "I'm quite pleased they refrained, nonetheless."

Edited 2009-01-18 23:04 (UTC)

"Of course. They always manage to find something disabling, and it's been so long since I've tried to plan." Well, something like a social date, anyway.

"Speaking of- I've called us a cab, it should be waiting for us downstairs. I hope you don't mind. I just thought that with the weather, it would be preferable." He thought about walking and just protecting them from the elements once more, but discarded it fairly quickly, thinking about people-sized snowglobes.

There's a bit of a look at the planning remark, a quick sideways glance that says she's thinking more about the possible double meanings of that remark than he probably meant her to -- but she doesn't comment on it, at least for now.

"Oh, no, that's perfectly fine -- I wouldn't have thought of it, I'm sure, and it'll be better with this weather." She'd already been dressed for walking, anyways, just in case -- not that the cold would really make much of a difference.

At the look, he quirks a smirk for just a moment- it melts back into a normal smile nearly immediately. He's glad to know it crossed her mind.

They get into the taxi with little fanfare, and he turns half-towards her. "Well, I'm sure that we could wait until we have food in front of us, but this might give us some time to think. You mentioned you wanted to know more about me, before. If you ask me anything tonight, I promise to be honest." There was really no harm in such a thing anymore now, was there? "Is there anything in particular you were curious about?" he asks with a smile.

She pauses, nails tapping on her watch for a moment (yes, she is wearing one), a quick, familiar rhythm. "I knew the previous you, when you were last in the City." There's a smile lingering on her lips as she looks at him, eyebrows slightly raised. "I'm inclined to ask what happened."

He seems distracted by the tapping for a moment, completely focusing his attention on it and narrowing his eyes slightly. Then he looks up into her eyes and chuckles. "I'm sure I must seem a lot different to you. Well...what happened was that I found out I was adopted. I have a family- a living family, one that's more than a little special on it's own."

There's just a hint of an awed, almost born-again quality to his voice. "My mother wants to try and help me become a better person, keep me from killing- no one really wanted to help me before, so I decided to give it a try." He shrugs, smiling and biting his bottom lip. "That's the story, in a nutshell."

"That's a very story-book sort of tale," she says, mildly enough, and she has to wonder what was so weak about him that he bent that easily to pressure. "But wouldn't you have rather had somebody that understood, instead of trying to change you?" She had Harry, after all.

Edited 2009-01-19 03:32 (UTC)

"Oh, I don't know," he replies, looking briefly out the window. The awe rapidly fades from his voice, and now there is a hint of bitterness. "I think Angela understands me better than you would assume. She handed me a new power when we first met, after all. Said I needed to be strong for what was coming."

He looks back at Lucy and gives her a small smile. "I'm not sure if anyone would really have understood me, as I was. There's a unique clarity to that sort of purpose- so far I haven't seen it replicated." A few have come awfully close lately, though, and it worries him. He'd rather not voice that, of course.

She follows his gaze instinctively, glancing at the dirty-snow landscape rushing by outside them, eyes moving back to his when he turns back. She won't comment on the sudden switch from mother to Angela, although the name does remind her -- she's talked to that woman before, hasn't she? What a coincidence.

"I'm sure some might have empathized, to some degree. Humanity is hardly a unique race, regardless of whether it is the individual or the masses." There's a bit of cynic to her tone, there, rehearsed but honest, but it's a quiet undertone. But regardless of how controlled it is, it's obvious she doesn't include herself in the statement. She'd like to consider herself above all that, you see.

Edited 2009-01-19 11:14 (UTC)

He looks at her, feeling really rather insulted, but smiling lightly as if he hadn't caught that. "Some have empathized- to a degree. But no one really understands. It's not as simple as transferring an ability from one person to another. There's a certain drive, an ambition-"

He seemingly cuts himself off before he gets too far. "Anyway, it's something I'd long since given up finding in others."

She wasn't really conciously intending to insult him, if it makes him feel any better. "And what is that ambition like?" It's a little too earnest, ignoring his brush-off with a brashness that makes her very nearly wince when she realises it, a split-second later -- clumsy of her, and rude. You'd have thought she had better manners than this. She smiles, slightly awkwardly, and modifies -- "--I only meant that it sounds like a rather fascinating thing to possess. And rather unique, as you said -- hence my interest."

The question catches his attention and he looks back up into her eyes. There's a sharpness to his, but that disappears after a moment. Then he smiles and leans back. He really does love to talk about his ability, and it shows.

"In my world, when you manifest a special ability, it's a reflection of your own soul. People who feel weak are made strong, people who have no say are given verbal control, people who want to know what other people think suddenly can. I? I wanted to understand. Everything in my world was so interesting, and there was so much that could be done with it. I wanted to know how it all fit together. So that's what I manifested- the ability to intuitively understand how a system should work. Any system."

He pauses for effect, a vague smile on his face. "When you can suddenly understand how anything works, don't you think it's natural to seek out more complex systems? To see what you can do with that knowledge? What you can be, what you can make of yourself?"

If you believe in souls, is the flicker of a thought that crosses her mind, but she'll hardly let it show, her face schooled into polite interest -- and something a little more like hunger. She just listens, one finger idly twisting around a lock of hair as she does so.

"It seems an easy enough transition," she says once he's done, hand dropping back to her lap and clasping the other one. "I'm sure I would have done the same, were I to recieve an ability like that." There's a slight, wry smile. "Interesting, that they would exist to empower people in that way. Wish-fulfillment, perhaps?"

"Perhaps. It's thought to be the next step of evolution, an odd genetic mutation- enhancement that lets some of us do what others only dream. Although one of the dreamers did decide to force the issue," he adds, with a tense tone to his voice. It's not disapproval, but it could easily be mistaken for such.

"I met one of these people, and he didn't want the gift he had. He was afraid of it. It grated against him, and in that moment I saw how broken he was. The only salvageable part was his ability. So. I took it, fitted it into myself." He won't apologize for Brian Davis. Somehow, he doubts he ever will. "If he didn't want what he'd wished for..." he trailed off, letting the sentence finish itself.

She watches as he speaks, blue eyes meeting his steadily, unhesitatingly. "It sounds almost as if you miss it," she remarks once he's done, not accusing but almost challenging. Missing, yes, or nostalgic at the very least -- why give something like that up if you're so proud of it, even if it defies social rules?

Lucy pauses as the taxi stops, having reached its destination of the Lux. She glances out the window for a moment before looking back with a slight smile on her face. "Well, then. Shall we go in?" (Yes, she is expecting him to pay for the taxi. It's one of those ever-so-slightly irritating assumed rights of being a rich, upper-class female. Sorry, Gabriel.)

Gabriel certainly doesn't mind. His mother (the real one) brought him up right, after all. He rather overpays the cab, offers an arm, and strides with Lucy into the Lux.

He'd always heard about how nice it was, but he'd only ever been in here once- he doesn't drink, really, and doesn't have much occasion to be here. He smiles at it, and between the shuffle of getting seated- he does pull out the chair for her, by the way- and menus, it's a few minutes before they can get back to it.

"I miss some of it," he eventually says while staring at the menu, out of nowhere. "I'll always miss the rush of getting a new ability. But usually the victims were much less deserving of their fate. An unfortunate circumstance of my own progress."

She pauses a few moments before replying, setting the menu down on the table and glancing up at him for a moment. "I rather think that sort of empathy is somewhat crippling," she says eventually, speaking quietly. "There is a time to be ruthless and a time to withdraw, and if ruthlessness is the only way to achieve your goals -- well. It hardly seems prudent to let yourself be stinted by such a thing as mercy or regret."

She pauses, reaches for her water glass to take a sip, the gold of her wedding ring tapping against the glass as she does so. "I certainly don't think I'd have gotten as far as I did if Harry and I hadn't had to do some rather unpleasant -- necessary, mind you, but unpleasant -- things."

It's moments like this that seem to be trying to convince Gabriel that this is all some dream brought on by a coma, that everything is springing from his own head. Rather than take it all with a grain of salt, he affords it more weight- because in that case, everything really is trying to tell him something.

He puts his menu down and regards her fully, the hint of a smile on his lips. "And how far was that, if I might ask?"

She smiles, folds her hands together. Of course she was expecting that question. "Great Britain's First Lady," she says, with a sort of quiet pride and smugness that is only just restrained but still very, very obvious. "And later -- well, what title would you call yourself when you have control over the known world?" Her smile turns a little more reminiscent, a bit more grounded in the past -- "It was Harry's idea, but I can't say I protested to it."

"Huh." And that's all he says for awhile, while his eyes practically glow as he regards her. "I had plans to become the American President for awhile. My brother sort of ruined that." Honestly, he didn't think he would've cared for it much, anyway. "How did you become ruler of the world? Or- Harry," he corrected, nodding down at her ring.

There's a bit of a smile at the remark about the President -- they did kill him, after all, and well done too, he was an idiot and a fool.

"Harry, yes," she says, tapping a nail against the table. "We... well. It's a rather long story, suffice to say. There was a certain amount of deception involved, I'll say that."

He gives her a knowing smile and nods. "I can only imagine that taking over all the countries in the world involves some deception, yes. You don't seem to come from one too terribly different than mine, I've noticed."

He takes a sip of his water, then adds, "Well, I won't make you retell it now, although it might make for an interesting story later. Still- it makes me far less surprised that you and I got along earlier." He holds up his glass and scrutinizes it as it twists in his fingers. "I understand that sort of grab for power, and what it feels like to hold so very much of it in your hand."

The waiter comes up to take their order, but first asks about wine. Gabriel decides to be the gentleman and let her pick, if she wants any. After all, he knows very little about wine, really.

A small, amused smile curls around her lips. "Ah, but can you lay claim to having extraterrestrials in yours?" 'Aliens' is such a crude way of putting it, after all.

"It would, yes, and I certainly don't mind telling it. But it does span some small number of years, and the context may be... rather difficult to understand at points." She doesn't comment on the latter part of his commentary, but instead glances back down at the menu, skimming through the contents. The waiter arrives and she does decide on wine, a rather nice white that will go well with the pasta she's ordering -- Italian, yes; she's always been fond of that particular country.

Gabriel orders filet mignon and hands the menu back with a charming smile and a 'thank you'.

He turns back to Lucy with shining eyes, the eyes that can understand the world, and he looks down at the table for a few moments before looking back up to her. "Lucy, you must know- you've already mentioned it twice, that I don't really feel...regret. With this ability, it's just not possible. I'm what most people consider a sociopath, I know this. But here, in the City, with the people from my world the way they are, it benefits me to keep a lid on my power collection. And who knows, maybe someday I will feel sorry, but I don't exactly intend to work on it."

He smiles wider, almost chuckling, as if its obvious what a ridiculous notion that is. Who wants to feel sad? "No, this is too close quarters, honestly. And besides- I do have some other incentives now."

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