xp_logs | Topaz and Gabriel || Brooding

Topaz and Gabriel meet in the kitchen and are mostly quiet at each other. With a little talking in between.

It wasn't often Topaz left the library anymore. Everybody made it easy enough to hide - she figured as long as she didn't caught sleeping in there no one would really care.

It was for that reason she found herself in the halls after most people would have gone to bed. She'd diverted down to the kitchen first, wanting to make tea but not wanting to wake Hope up.

Gabriel only ventured to the kitchen after dark. Well after dark. Hours that most people were sleeping, when he could guarantee not having to talk too much to any one of his well-meaning housemates. Had he not been a night owl by trade, it would have been insufferable to eat so late. As it was, though, he could sleep most of the day away and minimize any of the 'how you holding up' interactions he'd come to avoid.

When Topaz had walked in, he was in the middle of making a third grilled cheese. He looked up at her, then back down at the pan. "Hey," he said after a few seconds of silence, because it was the polite thing to do. "You want?"

Well if there was one thing he did not have to worry about hearing from Topaz, it was how are you holding up? That was an insufferable question and she'd heard it far too many times after her mother died. She would never put anyone else through that torture.

"No thanks," she said quietly as she rummaged through the cabinets, trying to find tea that wasn't Early Grey. The cabinets in this dimension were so poorly stocked. Strangely, her mind went to Matt. She shook the thought off as she finally found some strawberry tea. Well. Better than Earl Grey. "...Want some tea?" She added as an afterthought. He'd offered to make her food after all.

"Oh, uh..." Gabriel scratched the back of his neck, looking over at her. What he wanted was a rum and hot milk, but after all the drinking he'd been doing, he figured it'd be best to cool it. "Yeah," he said, nodding without much of a polite smile. "Sure. Thanks."

Using a spatula he'd found in the sink and done his best to rub off, he flipped the sandwich to the other side. It was quiet between them again, the only sound the sizzling pan. "I don't know where the plates are," he said after a second. "So I've been eating off that cereal box."

Well what Topaz wanted was wine but she and Hope had finished the last of that so she was out of luck. She grabbed an extra package and went to grab a couple mugs. "Oh, I saw plates once." She paused in the middle of the kitchen, turning as she tried to remember where they were. "That cabinet, I think. Unless you like your cereal box."

"Honestly?" A corner of Gabriel's mouth turned up. "I don't really give two fucks about plates." He shook the pan, then flipped the sandwich over a second time.

"Okay then." She wasn't going to push it with Gabriel, she could feel the emotions rolling off of him. Not on purpose, of course - her shields were just still tentative at best. She knew she should have told someone, but really who was she supposed to talk to? Haller and Dr. Grey were gone, Professor Xavier was in the med lab, and she didn't know the older Frost sister nearly well enough to ask. She grabbed a couple mugs and set to work with the tea.

"Sorry," he muttered. "That was probably inappropriate." As a concession, he followed her gesture and secured a plate for himself. "Seems to be my thing lately."

"Oh, it was fine," Topaz said distantly as she worked. Really she didn't care if he his grilled cheese off the floor. She'd only mentioned the plates because he had.

Gabriel shrugged, moving back in front of the stove to slide his sandwich onto a plate. He switched the burner off and brought the pan to the sink, where he plopped it down in the assumption someone else would take care of it. Then, he turned to look at Topaz. "It's weird," he said, more thinking out loud than anything else, "how you can survive an apocalypse with so many people and not know shit about them." He wasn't asking, and his tone made that clear. But it had been bugging him since he'd given up and come back home: Everyone here he really knew was dead, and everyone who was left was as close to strangers as someone could be when you lived in the same building and sometimes shared a kitchen.

Topaz poured the boiling water into two mugs, adding the tea bags and pushing one across to Gabriel before taking a sip of her own drink. It was every bit as horrid as she had expected it to be - like warm kool-aid. "Place this big, this many people, I guess that's to expected," she said after a moment. Even if he'd been asking, she wasn't exactly going to sit there and have sharing time with him. "Most people would say take that as a hint to try and get to know as many people as possible." Her tone made it clear exactly what she thought of that idea.

"So you can watch them die again?" He reached out for the mug, then grabbed the plate and took a seat. "Yeah, no. Pass, I think."

"Never said I agreed with it," Topaz said, sipping her tea again. "I'll take the library any day."

"That where you've been hiding?" Gabriel asked around a mouth of food, lifting an eyebrow to make a point. After a few more seconds of chewing, he swallowed. "Smart."

"It'd be smarter if people didn't already know that's where I always hide," Topaz admitted. "But nobody actually gives a damn what I'm up to these days so it serves my purposes. Always open if you need a place to go. You can even drink in the back if you want."

"You've got me figured out." Gabriel was amused. He took a sip of the tea and grimaced. "Yep," he put the cup back down, his face still a little scrunched up. "Drinking and hiding, hiding and drinking."

"I'm just that amazin'," Topaz deadpanned, still drinking her tea despite everything. She'd have drunk coffee to avoid touching Earl Grey.

He decided at that moment he liked Topaz, since she clearly had his number in more ways than one. Clint had been right about her. "Here." He looked down at the half of the sandwich he hadn't touched and slid the plate to her. "I'm not gonna finish it. Wonky appetite."

Topaz raised an eyebrow, a bit surprised. She hadn't exactly been expecting to get fed for her sarcasm, but she wasn't going to pass it up either. She had skipped supper. "Alright. Thanks," she pulled the plate closer, taking a bite of the sandwich.

"Yep." Gabriel nodded. He sipped his tea and winced again. Nope. This was not for him. "Well." He pushed his chair from the table and stood. "I need a smoke, so..." He gestured outside.

"Yeah." Topaz had to admit, she was a bit amused by his reaction to the tea. She finished off the sandwich quickly. "I should probably get to bed anyways." Everyone had to sleep eventually. "Night."

"Yeah." Gabriel nodded again, even though a smile or a wave was probably what was called for. He figured she wouldn't take it personally, since she probably knew what he was feeling. "Night."