“First tell me exactly what happened,” Ravi insists, “in the vision.”

Gabriel cocks his head sideways, a grin breaking out on his face, “Ever the scientist, aren’t we? Why should I give you the advantage?”

“You already have me at quite the disadvantage,” Ravi points out, glancing pointedly at their current predicament with him trapped in the computer chair, at Gabriel’s mercy. “It’s not like I can reach the twig from here.”

“Fair point,” says Gabriel. “You stabbed me in the neck, and I felt this burning pa-”

“What were you doing when I stabbed you?” Ravi interrupts. Gabriel hears Ravi’s heart flutter anxiously as he asks the question.

“I was…tasting you,” Gabriel admits. “I woke you up, and I couldn’t help myself. Even now I struggle as I look at you. I want every last drop of you on my tongue.” He notices Ravi wincing, and realizes he has tightened his grip on Ravi’s arms, digging in painfully. He lets go and sits back with a mumbled apology. 

“I shouldn’t have done it that way. It wasn’t right. I see that now. As I drank from you, you stabbed me. It was a searing pain that worked its way from my neck throughout my body, then I was paralyzed. Unfortunately for you, you were paralyzed too by my venom. We both lay on the floor, unable to move, until the sun came and burned me to death.”

Ravi glances at the clock, “Sunrise isn’t for eight hours. Meaning the bacteria must take a very long time to die. If it dies at all.”

“All I can tell you is that it was excruciating,” says Gabriel, “and all I could think of was reaching you. As angry as I was at whatever you had done to me, I wanted you to be alright. The venom, if there is no antidote-”

“Would kill me in the next twelve hours. I would lose the ability to breathe, and eventually my heart would fail, and finally brain death,” says Ravi, swallowing again. 

“I have no interest in killing you, Ravi. On the contrary, I yearn to spend eternity with you, getting to know all there is to know about you.”

Ravi’s heart is racing again, and Gabriel can see him itching to bolt out of that chair. 

“I don’t want to be like you. I have no interest in being a killer.”

“You don’t have to consume people, you know. There are plenty of alternatives,” Gabriel points out. 

“Gabriel, I’ve been a vegetarian my whole life. I’m not going to start eating animals now.”

It takes Gabriel a moment to consider Ravi’s words. He remembers how horrified he was at the thought of murdering people when Tristan turned him. The first kill had left him shaking all night, sick to death. He remembers how he had never wanted anyone else to have to suffer that. 

He also knows that there is no way he is leaving there without Ravi, one way or another.