Gabriel teaches Leonie a little respect
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There's nothing out in the desert to attract tourists, these days. Miles away from the city of sin and flashing lights, the Highway 161 is a barren thing that seems to stretch forever into the horizon. Perhaps thats why the Pack uses this territory to let their more wild members run loose, free of any wayward pedestrians. Other than the occasional slaughtered animal, its a peaceful place for a wolf to dwell. Maybe thats why Gabriel is here, wandering through the sands with no general sense of urgency to his foot steps. The man seems to be taking a walk, a peaceful stroll per se, unaffected by the beating of the hot western sun.
Solitude is such a fickle thing. So easily snatched away, with little you can do to prevent it. Is this where the wild things are? It certainly explains the presence of the one who follows after Gabriel's unhurried steps. Making no real effort to disguise her trailing of him - her stride is naturally rather stealthy, by her very nature - Leonie pads along a short distance in his wake, neither falling behind nor catching up. Just… observing. He'll notice her in due course. People always do.
With her hands shoved deep in the pockets of her baggy jeans, and a light sweater that falls woefully overlarge about her, leaving one shoulder entirely bare, Leonie looks likewise comfortable in the desert heat. Not flawless, by any stretch of the imagination. But comfortable. Her dark hair is, as always, loose and tousled, stray curls often wandering across her vivid amber eyes. Which, for the time being, are utterly intent on the other's back.
Whether or not Gabriel takes notice of the fact that he's being followed cannot quite be ascertained, considering that the man has not stopped once in his trek since the woman started to follow him. As he continues to walk, a ranch comes into view on the horizon. Despite the size of it, even from her position far behind him, it can be seen that the place is bereft of life. Finally, Gabriel's feet stop moving and he stands planted there, looking curiously down upon the homestead that obstructs his view of the horizon behind it. "Hvorfor er du folgende?"
The girl doesn't halt, just because Gabriel does. No, her pace doesn't falter at all. And eventually it brings her to the same outcropping upon which he stands, albeit a good few feet to one side of him. Hands remain in pockets. Golden eyes remain steady on the abandoned ranch house, having shifted from the other before she halted. "How many times do I have to ask you to speak English?" she enquires, the tone conversational and yet not really directed at the taller man at all. It's a distracted reproach, at best. The slight cant of her head to one side suggests brief curiosity in the old homestead, before her attention flits back to her quarry. There's no fault to be found in her air of nonchalance. Maybe she really -isn't- scared of him, reputation and all.
"How many times are you going to have to ask until you realize that I'm not going to stop, Hvalp?" He doesn't look over at the woman, and instead keeps his eyes on the grounds ahead of them. He seems to be watching for something, but its anyone's guess as to what. "Du ved ikke, hvad jeg siger. Du er en hests rov." The words are spoken clearly, but his tone remains calm and collected. The man isn't paying her nearly enough attention to notice that she's not scared of him, but after a moment he seems satisfied with his investigation of the farmstead and he's heading down towards the house.
"Til I get tired of it." is the obvious response, accompanied by a shrug of slender shoulders. Leonie ignores the next little garble of what is, to her, nonsense. But when the other starts forward, so too does she. That half-step difference is probably -not- intentional… no, it's not. She catches up and keeps pace with Gabriel once the ground levels out, finally withdrawing her hands from her pockets and letting them swing in a relaxed fashion by her sides. Her battered Vans are covered in dirt and dust. But then, so is the rest of her.
The house doesn't seem to hold the same fascination for her, after her initial, cursory regard of it. So why's she tagging along? To annoy him, one can only presume. "..caused quite a scene on the Strip, didn't you. Bad for business. Especially when you can't be seen for dust right after." Absently kicking a rock out of her path, the brunette shakes aside her rueful mane and looks to Gabriel, sidelong. "How long you gonna hide out here?"
"The strip?" Pulling his eyes away from the porch of the household, Gabriel looks at Leonie for a brief moment. "Nothing happened on the strip, past the incident in which some idiot hit me with his car. As for what happened in Paradise, I'm going to avoid killing officers as long as I can." A grumble rises in his throat as the wooden steps creak underneath the weight of his boot, "I wont go to jail for a crime I am not guilty of, and you know better than I that the human's legal system is one of their most unreliable establishments."
Being far lighter, the brunette alights the steps with less audible protest from underfoot, keeping her gaze contemplatively - and watchfully - on Gabriel. "Why would anyone think you had anything to do with it at all? Unless you were there. In which case.. what the fuck were you doing there." Her playful innocence is ebbing, gradually being replaced with the icy irritation she's infamous for. It's obvious from the subtle narrowing of her vibrant gaze, the slight tension along her jaw and throat. Tiny signals that a human would likely overlook with ease. "I ain't exactly the biggest fan of humans and their methods." she admits, lapsing briefly into her more natural manner of speaking. "..but if you're hiding anything that might harm Tom's pack, you -know- it's my place to get it out of you. So. Anything you wanna tell me?"
An audible growl can be heard from the man's throat as he steps up on the porch, her words seemingly far more irritating to the man than her presence. "That's business between me and Tom, and you'll be kind enough to keep your snout out of it." His fingers slide around the column that supports the roof of the porch, and as his narrowing eyes look Leonie in the face, his upper lip curls as a warning. "Did he send you here to interrogate me? If he didn't, fuck off. If he did…fuck off."
"If he knew what was goin' on, would I have dragged my ass all the way out here? Got better things to be doin' with my time than following -you- on your little walkabouts, mutt." Despite her smaller stature, the female holds her ground, unperturbed by the snarl of threat presented to her. Though she does answer it with a rumble of a growl low in her chest. Just not fully voiced. "I'm not your enemy, you fool. If you say you didn't do it, I believe you. I want to know what happened that night that makes you -look- guilty. And I want to know now, so that I can -leave-."
The last is uttered upon a more full-fledged sound of annoyance and urgency. Obviously Leonie is irked at having been sent on this errand in the first place. Gabriel being uncooperative is not helping. Flitting a glance to his choice of grasp, however, and given the rather tentative state of the porch, she smirks a touch and takes a step aside, through the delapidated front door. If he wants to huff and puff, on his own head be it.
"Do you think I did it? If I did, I'd still be in the city running my body count as high as I could." As she breaks her eye contact and starts to head into the house, he lets forth something more helpful than a confrontational growl. "It was supernatural, unless humans have figured out how to tear out throats and gut one another with their bare hands. Whoever it was, they made a mess." Leaning back against the column, he crosses his arms and narrows his eyes at the younger woman. "As for me, I found the bodies, and a human found me. A wolf found at the scene of a murder, connect two and two and I'm guilty until proven innocent."
In spite of herself, Leonie hauls her temper under control. Again, her head ticks to the side. It's a mannerism she can't seem to shake, even in this form. "Do you think it was a shifter? Don't see why a bloodsucker would bother gutting someone… in fact, you'd think it'd be a waste." Her curiosity, and the rapid tangents in her mind, keep her from bothering to acknowledge the narrowing of Gabriel's eyes. She doesn't seem that interested unless she's answering a threat. And let's be fair, not many of the mid and lower ranks threaten her at all. Puffing a wayward dark curl out of her face with an abrupt exhale, the Beta rests her hands on her hips. "Well. What a fuckin' mess. You know they've called in the SAD, now? That don't bode well." Everyone knows the shifters taken by those louts are rarely alive enough to be questioned, let alone ever see trial. "Not that I especially miss your face around the city, but seems like there might be a pressin' need to find whoever -did- do it. Before we -all- end up hiding in abandoned shacks in the desert."
"They weren't unfit men. Wouldn't be surprised if a leech didnt have time to drain them one at a time. Still, claws like those? Somebody was shifting something to tear them open like that." Pushing off of the column, Gabriel walks in past her, his shoulder forcefully bumping her own as he makes his way past towards the kitchen. "They always do like to jump to the conclusion that its some sort of supernatural conspiracy. Damned apes are so full of themselves as a species." Another snarl, this time directed towards the window as Gabriel makes his way over towards the fridge. "Careful or I'll go back with you just to spite you, Hvalp."
Leonie responds immediately and forcefully to the deliberate shoulder-bump with a full-voiced growl, this one at the back of her throat, and a fractional drawing back of her upper lip, revealing a glimpse of white teeth. Still, his bulk succeeds in pivoting her a little in place, even if she stubornly refuses to stumble. "Yeah. -They're- full of themselves." Her response drips with pointed sarcasm. Distaste sours her expression as she watches the large man pass toward the kitchen, and the surely outdated refrigerator. "And your problem has now become -my- problem. Fuckin' A."
Still, she was obviously listening, even as jangled instincts suggested she close her jaws around his throat. "..do vampires have claws, some of them? Spose I oughta find out." An abrupt sigh, and she glances from the open doorway, back to Gabriel. "Well, you enjoy your vacation, mutt. Rut in the dirt with the wildies, while I clean up after you like a fuckin' den-mother. No, no.." She flicks the fingertips of one hand dismissively in the air as she turns to head out to the porch once more. "..no need to thank me."
"My problem is that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was going to be a problem for us even if we weren't there. Claw marks are claw marks, and we're the closest pack that they can blame." Gabriel opens the fridge and starts to root around inside, a stench of blood and meet flooding out of the cold contraption. As she tells him to rut in the dirt, the man's fingers take hold of a carton and pull its lid open. Taking a drink, he smirks at it and then her as she starts to walk away. Drawing his hand back, he sends the thing sailing through the air with a collision course straight towards the back of her head.
Halting abruptly, Leonie remains very still for a moment, framed by the ramshackle doorway. Milk sluices down across her waves of dark hair, trailing in rivulets across the bare skin of her upper back, saturating her sweater and gradually dripping and spattering on the dusty floorboards where she stands. When she -does- react, it's far from the slow, predatory grace of her usual motion.
Whirling on a heel, teeth fully bared in a snarl of sheer challenge and fury, she wrenches the aged door free from the last vestiges of it's hinges, using her momentum to hurl the splintering wood across at Gabriel. Petty retaliation? Not quite. She's following in it's wake. Distraction, always a plus. And -damn-, she's fast. Her long strides bear her with dizzying speed toward the larger of the pair, arms already bracing to impact his chest and tackle him bodily, if he doesn't react in time.
A satisfied smirk rests its way onto the large Danish man's face as the woman reacts. He doesn't get out of the way of the object, no. Instead, he draws back and hand and slams his fist into it, splintering the large piece of wood mid-air. His attention is immediately on the fast moving woman. Its not unknown amongst the pack that Gabriel's size belies one of the fastest shifters this side of Vegas. Just like the door, he doesnt try to avoid the woman, and instead runs towards her with his hands open, ready for the fight of dominance to come. "I'm going to teach you a little respect, Hvalp!"
Launching herself without hesitation on her last stride, Leonie hurls herself toward the large man, drawing up her knees and aiming to jab one at his midsection as she lands solidly against his bulk. One hand seeks to grasp his shoulder, nails digging into yielding flesh, while the other is drawn back in mid-flight, prepared to snap a strike across his jaw, should the opportunity exist when she meets him. A feral snarl escapes her again, more akin to a wildcat of some sort, in her human form, as a surge of adrenaline courses through her lean musculature, pushing her onward without a trace of forethought.
Gabriel's left hand comes up and catches her knee as she collides with his body, but that strike goes unhindered. Her fist collides with his jaw with a loud crack as the strong bones beneath strain not to break beneath the pressure of her blow. Thank goodness for their kind's resilience. Instead of blocking her strike, his hand reaches straight for the flesh of her neck as his other hand keeps an iron grip against her knee, squeezing at the knee cap. The man almost immediately moves to smash into the wall, attempting to crush her between the bulk of his body and the strength of the wall itself.
That was a satisfying sound; her fist connecting with Gabriel's face. But the pleasure is detracted from by his superior grip. Immediately wriggling, Leonie kicks out with her other foot, aiming swiftly between his thighs as she seeks to free her knee from that uncomfortably tight hold. Her skill lies in speed and agility, not brute strength, Not against an opponent this size. Baring her teeth down at him as his hand finds purchase on her throat, the Beta's mind isn't upon his intent, for the hurried few seconds of fighting. Seeing as he has her, she brings up both hands, one to tangle in his hair and the other aiming another blow to his eyesocket.
The decrepit, mouldy walls of the abandoned house aren't capable of withstanding a disagreement of preternatural force now, if indeed they ever were. The sheer strength of the crash, followed by that of their combined weight, sends the pair flying through splintered boards and dust.
Gabriel lets out a yell as her fist collides with his eye socket, the white of his eye turning red as the orb hemorrhages under the impact of the blow. Clenching it shut, he slams his head forward to headbutt her in the nose as they sail through the run down ranch's wall and into one of the bathrooms. Her foot is caught between his knees and he snarls, "Dishonorable bitch." As he gets his fingers around her neck, the man's grip starts to tighten painfully and with a forceful shove he moves to slam her against the mirror.
The brunette's snarling is cut off with the solid headbutt to her nose, a yelp preceding the rush of blood that suddenly mars her lower lip, smearing across her cheek. But her teeth remain bared. As they thunder into the bathroom, she gives up trying to kick her way free, instead hooking her free leg at Gabriel's hip for some semblance of balance. As it turns out, unnecessarily.
The glass of the mirror shatters, cascading in reflective shards about Leonie's shoulders and back, a grudging cry of pain loosed from her with the sheer impact. Numerous cuts cleave across her bare skin, but go unnoticed for the time being. She needs to get loose. Or at least find an advantage. The hand that had tangled in Gabriel's hair rakes now across his features, seeking to blind his other eye with a swipe of fingernails as he chokes her. The other, as her blood begins to pound in her ears with the lack of air, scrabbles for the shower curtain to her other side. A jerk of her arm hauls it free of the rail, and she immediately tries to wrap it across the Alpha's face to suffocate him in return. You have to fight dirty, when you're the underdog.
Her fingernails leave red rake marks in their wake. Keeping his eyes shut, he barely avoids being blinded and looks at her through one fierce and angry eye. Despite all thats going on, his mouth remains curled up into that grin. She has /never/ seen the man smile, and this is the first time he's shown a semblance of joy. Even as she pulls the shower curtain free, he's pulling her back back the neck and slamming her forward into the broken mirror again, concaving the wall. As she wraps that shower curtain around his head and cuts off his air supply, the man lets go of her knee and plants his fist directly into her gut with the kind of force that breaks cinder blocks.
Ow. A sharp whine of pain is, perhaps thankfully, restricted by the hand wrapped at her throat as Leonie's again thrown at the sharp remnants of the mirror; fragments of the tiled wall behind now crumbling and toppling down over her upper body. It's a small victory, getting that plastic sheet across his face. But a timely one. Doubling over involuntarily as he lands that strike to her torso, the girl draws up a knee to protect herself… then thinks better of it. She kicks out with all her might in retaliation, the shower curtain hopefully preventing him from having a chance of deflecting her. She's getting desperate for air, blackness beginning to seep in around the edges of her vision. Desperate measures. Get -off-!
Two of the large man's ribs snap with the impact of her foot against his torso, his teeth clenching from the pain as his one good eye widens. He takes a step back, stumbling, but his grip doesn't lighten on her neck. She wants him off, but he seems equally adamant about staying on. Lifting her off the ground, almost effortlessly with how light she is, he takes one step back and pivots, swinging her through the air to slam her down against the porcelain toilet. It's a reckless move, but cracked ribs tend to piss werewolves off.
The lack of oxygen is taking it's toll; there's little resistance from the lean brunette as she's hauled upward and into the air again. It didn't work. -Damnit-. But he's hurting, at least. Bloodied and dishevelled, the girl barely manages to brace herself for the impact as she's slammed down hard upon the porcelain edges, a silent yowl of pain parting her blood-smeared lips as the jolt wracks in a jarring spasm of pain through her back. Cracked vertebrae, surely. Whatever it is, it -hurts-. And she still can't breathe. Both hands now claw viciously toward Gabriel's face again, seeking any method of drawing him off. Her legs, rendered briefly useless by the shock of the latest blow, are simply sprawled at strange angles.
Gabriel drops down onto her as she starts to claw at his face, his eyes given barely a thought as the man rests viciously into that viking wolf battle rage. Pinning her legs with his knees, he pulls her head up off the ground and slams it back down against the linoleum lined floor with incredible strength. Its the problem with being built for speed, what happens when they actually get a hold of you? Even as blood starts to poor down his face where her fingernails have torn his eye lids, and a strange clear goo flows its way out of his unhemmorhaged eye through a cut sliced into it from her human-born claws, the man is just not letting go. His free hand joins his other and the man seems to have moved on from throwing her about to repeatedly lift her head off the floor and slam it back down.
Ohhh, the world's getting blurry, now, that's for sure. It can only be pure wilful rage that's keeping the Beta conscious, by now; pushing back those dark fringes on the periphery of her sight as she glares silently up into Gabriel's equally furious features. Every slam against the ground forces her eyes closed in a nauseated wince, before she doggedly opens them again. Why does she need to see, so badly? Seeing as digging her nails full-force into his cheekbones isn't having the desired effect, Leonie makes a last attempt to distract him from mindlessly beating her black and blue. She hooks her thumbs and presses them as hard as her wavering strength permits into his eyes. Yes, one's already wounded. But how would he like to lose both? With her lips parted and blue-tinged, and blood trickling through her dark hair now, she gives it a shot.
Gabriel twists his face this way and that as she tries to shove her thumbs into his eye sockets. He lets out a howl of pain as her thumb catches his already utterly messed up eye, the sensitive flesh of the orb deflating as its juices are squeezed out through the slice by the pressure of her thumb. Drawing one hand back in retaliation, he slams the butt of his palm against her nose with unstoppable force to try and break her nose and drive it up into her brain. Its a move that would kill a human, easily, but she's no human. He doesn't need to kill her, just knock her out. Even as his hand slams forward and makes fresh contact with her nose, her other thumb catches his eye and the man struggles as she blinds him, "Just fucking die already, Hvalp!"
The blinding pain, as his hand connects and breaks her nose across the bridge, seems to be a double-edged sword. It rouses her, albeit fleetingly, to a little further in the way of fighting back. Dropping one hand to the linoleum floor, she scrabbles about with her fingers. There has to be… but where… ah! There. Taking a grasp on a shard of glass from the mirror, ignoring the deep cuts the action slices across her own hand, Leonie brings it without preamble and slams it deep into Gabriel's forearm as he continues to throttle her. With her amber eyes tearing up in the wake of his blow, it's a lot of guesswork. But having his hand wrapped at her throat narrows down the position of his wrist. And, despite the futility with his weight pinning her, her body convulses as she fades, trying to buck him off.
A strained groan of pain is let out as that long shard of glass buries its way deep into his arm. As blood starts to flow its way down his arm and across her neck and the floor, he grabs at her neck with both hands, starting to squeeze and twist. If he keeps this up, he might just snap it. He can't see, he's been stabbed, and his face is torn to hell. The man has committed too much to this fight to let go, just a little bit further. Just a little…bit…further. With the freedom granted by her scrambling for a weapon, he pulls back his head and falls forward, slamming his forehead against her already broken nose. Let it be said that if they are anything, they are both freaking beligerently alive.
Leonie's final few motions are subtle, and entirely defensive; a jerk aside to avoid having her nose smashed again - she saw -something- headed for her, presumably him. And, with a shudder in his grasp, as best she can she relaxes her head back, willingly offering the throat he already claimed some time ago. Releasing the shard of glass with a soft tinkling sound, she lets her arms drop either side of her, palm up, and blearily looks up at him through eyes narrowed to slits, glazing over with impending loss of consciousness. Submission. Ugh. Even as her comprehension wavers, she can't stand it. But the brunette's form goes compliantly limp and yielding beneath the Alpha, no longer fighting him at all.
As Gabriel feels the woman go limp in his hands, he leans forward and whispers into her ear. "You put up a good fight, and I can respect that. It has been a long time since I experienced a truly enjoyable combat, Hvalp." Sitting up, he lets go of her throat and rises to his feet. Strangely, he offers her his hand, blind as he is as his regenerative genes to go work fixing the rather extensive damage she's done to his face. He might have won, but the man looks like he stepped in front of a train in the process of doing it.
A hoarse, raw gasp is raggedly drawn inward as the girl's throat is released, only to make her choke and cough until she almost retches, arching her back upward from the floor. More fragments of glass slither from her clothing, musically tinkling on the floor around her. Blinking as her vision slowly clears, still struggling to breathe and swallowing convulsively, the brunette regards Gabriel sullenly as he rises, towering over her. -Damnit-. But ow. Grimacing, she offers a hand up to accept his. There's blood smearing the linoleum and matting the back of her dark mane of hair. There's blood on her lips, on her cheeks, on her hands. And boy does her back hurt like a mother. But she hauls herself upward anyway. It's a pride thing.
Gabriel's fingers grasp around Leonies own as she takes his hand and the man helps to pull her off the ground. His vision is blurry in his unpunctured eye, and his bloody and de-inflated eye's slice has been healed and is working to refill itself with those delicious eye goop juices. Peering her up and down, he nods towards the couch. "Go lay on your stomach. Don't fucking ask why and don't fight it. Just do it. Don't worry, I'm not going to try to fuck you." The way those last words strain their way through his lips, you'd think the man might have thought of it once or twice.
"I'd stab you somewhere much worse than your arm, mutt." Leonie grits out the words through her teeth, before turning and moving unsteadily toward the couch. Not much choice but to do as he says, all things considered. As she passes through the makeshift 'doorway' in the wall, though, she gives herself a slight all-over shake, loosening more debris from her clothes and hair. Hiding the resulting wince as best she can, she staggers to the ancient sofa and flops unceremoniously down upon the cushions, stifling a groan as she buries her face in them.
"Keep calling me mutt and I /will/ fuck you. Shut your mouth for just two seconds while I try to help you." Sneering out those words, he moves beside where she lays on the couch and drops to a knee with a wince. Thankfuly he took most of his beating in the face. Slipping forth his hands, he mutters. "You're still part of my pack, I wont have you walking around prone to ambush. If anyone gets to beat you to a pulp, its going to be me." Despite his words, he starts to up from her lower back and across her spine. Its a rare ability, the talent to heal others, but Gabriel seems versed at least slightly in talent. Most of her issues are going to have to go away naturally, but that cracked vertebrae is taken care of.
