~~~
Sang's POV
Location: Gabriel's Boutique
Date: End of November
~~~
I meet with Lucian that weekend. He comes to get me with a smile as big as the sun, and a hug that's a tad too far on the side of familiar. He'd been unusually smiley that morning at breakfast, and positively glowing during our 'bonding time', otherwise known as kitchen clean up.
I take him in with red cheeks. He looks beautiful in a white button up shirt that's paired with a woolen cardigan and soft blue jeans. The sun's shining through the trees and highlighting the hair that's almost as long as mine and it hits his eyes at just the right angle to beam up the golden tunics in his brown eyes.
"Hey, Sang." His eyes take me in, intensely gazing at me with obvious interest. Typical Lucian.
"Hi." I respond. "Ready to go?" His mouth opens, probably to remind me again that he prefers Luke, but a croaky voice cuts him off.
"It is, by far, too early for this trip. I mean shit. Couldn't we have done this later in the day?" Leninora appears from where she was leaning against the car we're taking today with big sunglasses covering her face and a frown that is in direct contrast to Lucian's happy exterior.
Lucian stares at her, with the most unusual expression on his face; surprise, confusion, and most unusual of all alarm. It all melts away almost instantaneously but I catch it and it sets my nerves on edge.
"I didn't know you were coming with us," Lucian can't seem to help himself saying. "We're going to see a movie too. The matinee price is way cheaper."
"I love picking out clothes and movie theaters are great for naps." Len smugly responds.
I catch an undertone in their conversation, an underlying something that I'm not getting, that just continues to heighten my curiosity.
"Yeah. I'm sure you do," Lucian rolls his eyes, and opens the back door. He waits for me to settle in, and then like the perfect gentleman he is, he goes for the passenger door and holds it open for Leninora too.
I smile to myself when she huffs indignantly and clambers her way in.
Lucian slams the door, and Leninora whirls around to glare at me.
"Keep your guard up." She hisses at me. I wince at the manic look in her eye. I really should have been keeping a closer eye on her. I've just been so busy, and she's so good at avoiding me. I've got to do better, I berate myself.
Lucian finds his way to the driver's seat, turns on the car and off we go.
~~~
We hit the movies first. Leninora complains about the one Lucian wants to see, so we split up and agree to meet back at the car afterwards.
The one we watch together is cute. We share a popcorn, and do all of the cute little things you see in all of the romance movies.
Accidentally touch each other's hands when we both go for popcorn at the same time...-check.
Glance at each other at the same time during a particularly touching moment...-check.
We're giggling when we leave the theater room. It was a good movie, not as good as the first apparently but still fun.
"Let's pick up some food to take with us to Gabriel's. Once he gets his hands on you, he'll never let us go." He says in a goofy voice.
I smile and shake my head at him in amusement.
"Let's go check on Len and then we can drive over to a grocery store." I suggest. He nods and we head off.
~~~
We picked up sandwiches and a whole pack of soda. Len was sleeping in the car, so we left her in the back seat to shop and when we came back she complained endlessly about us not waking her up.
"I need to go back and pick up some stuff. You two can just call me when you're done and I'll come back to pick you up," She says.
It doesn't escape my notice that Lucian's face lightens at that. Something that seems to have been weighing him down all morning lifts off his shoulders when she leaves us on the curb and he turns to me with a smile.
"It's time to introduce you to my best friend." He grabs my hand and drags me to the nondescript building with bouncy steps, "You're going to love him."
~~~
Dress after gorgeous dress is hung up in the extravagant dressing room in Gabriel's boutique but I'm all but desensitized to the beauty at this point.
Each dress brought in is a vision of perfection, some shiny and sparkly while others are soft and ethereal. Some have soothing pastels, and others hold beautiful, rich and bold colors.
Hours have gone by though, and I think I have enough clothes to outfit the entire estate now, let alone myself. We're on formal-wear and I'm hoping to see the light at the end of the tunnel soon.
Gabriel hasn't even touched my hair yet.
"What do you think about this one?" Gabriel asks, showing off a particularly vibrant pink dress and I make my 'yuck' face.
I hate to say it, but Gabriel might not be the genius Lucian says he is.
While most of the casual and professional wear were neutral colors, ('the classics first, Trouble') everything from the swimsuits to sweaters to everything in between has been some shade of pink. Literally.
Every shade. Of pink. On everything.
I think he's starting to get irritated with my dismissal of it all, because he drops the dress with a growl.
"Okay. What's with the hate?" He crosses his arms and frowns down at me.
I don't like the way he stands over me, but he's been flitting around the room like a mad man and the only safe space I've found so far where I don't get moved around like a doll is this couch.
I blink my eyes innocently at him, careful not to glare at his vibrant pink hair even though it's so bright it might as well be fluorescent. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. Every time I bring out something pink you look like it's covered in vomit. What gives? You used to love pink." He states simply.
I hate that. While Silas, Luke, and Victor very sparingly, if ever, bring up details from knowing me so many years ago, North and now Gabriel are more than making up the difference.
"I'm not too fond of pink anymore," I admit.
He lifts his eyebrows, obviously wanting more information but I won't give it to him. Not without a little give on his end.
"How did we meet?" I ask, "Originally? How do we know each other?"
Gabriel smiles, clearly tickled...pink...about my interest in our relationship.
"If I tell you our story, will you tell me yours?" He asks.
I gaze at him.
When we walked in earlier, Gabriel's crystal blue eyes had looked so familiar that I had started to cry. His hair, on the other hand, made me sob. Bright pink, with soft pink cotton-candy highlights, graze his cheekbones and the ends fall to his shoulders.
Convoluted memories, some of which I know fully well about and some that make no sense, had overtaken my senses and I could only cry and hold onto Lucian and then Gabriel. It had been intense and emotionally potent.
There's a connection there. Something worth fighting for, I just know it.
I've felt it with all the boys. Some unknown instinct pressing me to dig deeper. Find those lost connections and buried memories and make them real again.
Those same instincts scare me. It's like there's a second person, separate inside my mind, trying to control my thoughts and feelings. I hate it. But I want it too and it's all just so confusing.
"The color pink has become symbolic for me," I throw out, trying my best to separate myself from that other entity. I gently pull him down to sit on the couch with me. I'm going to need him on the same level as I am to have this conversation. And we might as well be comfortable while we have it.
I sit close to him, and find myself rubbing a calming palm up and down his arm when he stiffens. He catches my other hand and drags me even closer and stares into my eyes. I've noticed that's kind of his thing. Pulling me closer. Holding on.
"Symbolic for what?" he asks quietly.
I stare back, and a wave of nostalgia hits me. Those eyes, that stare. The intensity behind his expression. I'd been here before, and the sense of familiarity has me answering his question as honestly as I can.
"Symbolic for pain, and suffering," I whisper. "The color pink reminds me of the many times I was adorned in it, for someone else's pleasure. Even seeing the color at times, can take me back to being swathed in it. It reminds me of my lost innocence, of my naivety that was stripped along with those pink clothes. Pink is the color of my pain, Gabriel. That is why I don't wear pink."
By the end of my explanation, Gabriel Coleman's eyes are shining. I lift my hands and press my thumbs against his eyelids, forcing his tears to keep at bay, and then cup his face. Too familiar, I warn myself, but all of the normal rules don't seem to apply to this situation.
"Don't cry for me," I whisper to him.
Guilt shines back at me.
"Don't look at me like that." I chide him.
"Like what?" He asks. It's a watery question like he's drowning in it all. In the guilt. In the remorse.
"Like it's somehow your fault. It's not." I tell him.
"It feels like it." He whispers, so quietly. So painfully.
"It's not," I assure him, my words choking out. I lay my head against his. "It's not."
This conversation is so heavy for someone I feel like I've just met but in a lot of ways, I have to remind myself we know each other. Even if I don't remember.
"We met in Kota's house." Gabriel tells me, desperately trying to change the subject, and I smile. Kota. Dakota. I've met him.
"You were already hanging out with Kota and Nathan and...." Gabriel goes on. He tells me about our friends. All of them. He tells me about Ashley Walters and his home with Pam. He tells me about the forest, and his paintings, and the closet.
He tells me so much. Memories are out of my reach, but when Gabriel talks about it all it's like we're there.
Lucian comes back a couple of hours later. He'd left some while ago to pick up something Gabriel forgot and left us to the clothes-tastrophe. It had seemed important at the time, but for the life of me, I can't imagine what would take 2 and a half hours to go and get. Some small part of me feels like he might have just been trying to give us a little space. I appreciate it now more than I could say.
He finds us curled together on the couch still. My head is in Gabriel's lap, and he's running his hands through my hair. We decided not to cut it, and he doesn't want to trim it until he's thrown together a formula for the split ends. Something about saving the length.
"Hey." Lucian, Luke I remind myself after Gabriel's little story about not using the name his father gave him, smiles at us. "I picked up that stuff."
Something unspoken filters between them. I don't worry about it. Any doubt I held about them is gone. Any fear I held that they were just here to...I don't even know, hurt me? Let me down? No. Not them. It's gone.
These are my people. And neither Gabriel nor Lucian would ever hurt me. I trust them. Completely. Nothing I've heard today feels new. It's all there, somewhere in my subconscious, just waiting for me.
It'll come back to me, and until then I close my eyes, snuggling into Gabriel and just let them send their secret looks to one another.
My mistake was closing my eyes. Never close your eyes around someone you aren't 100% sure isn't about to chloroform and kidnap you. Even if you trust the person. Even if you know they aren't going to hurt you, they may still do something dumb. Like try to kidnap you for your own good.
Because even as Luke pulls out a bottle of the liquid and a soft rag I lay completely boneless and not even a little prepared for what he did next.
In just seconds he'd soaked the cloth in the chloroform, crossed the room and covered my mouth and nose.
Confusion makes me slow, not understanding how we went from Gabriel cuddling me and sharing our pasts, to Luke suddenly holding a rag of freaking chloroform against my face. I don't even fight him.
Gabriel's one arm locks around my shoulders to keep me against his chest as I grow too dizzy to remember how to fight them off.
The last thing I see before I gave into the noxious fumes is Luke's eyes staring down into mine. He stares down at me with so much emotion, and for just a short moment, I remember.
I remember everything.
And it shocks me so much that I choke, taking in a big gulp of the stupid chloroform and that's it. I fall into the abyss of drugged sleep.