All Men Are Dogs

Somehow even the humbled expression on Gabriel's face managed to make her feel worse. She had never been able to silence his barrage of comments before but this didn't feel like the victory she would expect. The silence had come at the price of her own humiliating weakness and as he looked across the desk at her she wished he would simply laugh at her, make a sassy comment, and leave. More than anything, Irene couldn't stand that almost-sympathetic look on his face - it didn't suit him at all.

Irene's frustrations were now more directed at herself than the man across from her. She allowed her face to harden in an attempt to mask the discomfort that Gabriel had picked up on. There was nothing wrong and they certainly didn't need to talk about it.

"Nothing."

The word came out with a snap, nearly cutting off his question. Her tone was severe, with just the right amounts of bitterness and resentment mixed in. She attempted to recover her composure by clarifying, "You didn't say anything." This time her words had lost their bite (though not their bitterness) as she tried to hold any dignity that was left. Had she really sunk to this level? It was disturbing and close to out of body, reminiscent of her teenage years when moods had run wild, separate from any rational thought.

Irene needed him to go but couldn't quite bring herself to ask him again. If she asked she was certain it would come out like a plea. And no matter what it had come to, Irene would never stoop to begging Gabriel for something.

Irene looked up, her eyes surprisingly cold as they stared down the Short man, daring him to ever speak with with such a sincere, nearly kind, look in his eyes again. That sort of behavior wouldn't be tolerated.

Gabby was very good at pushing people’s buttons, and because he had been dealing with Irene for so long, he had expertly learned how to push her to frantic and irritable without ever crossing the line that would lead him to an arrest. He had not crossed that particular line, but he had crossed some line, and he felt it. Gabby often liked to boast that he had no boundaries, that very little would stop him from doing what he said he wanted to do, but he was out to create chaos, not pain, so he did know where that line was and when it was inappropriate to cross it. The man was not a sadist, after all.

Something he had said... had hurt Irene Norwood, the emblem of professional disattachment. Gabby did not think it possible. He was less worried about her feelings because, as he reminded himself, she was Ministry scum, and more curious than anything what had done it. And he was not curious for malicious reasons, but for the simple reason that, in all of his time annoying her and running his mouth, he had never said something that had genuinely upset the woman, and he just had to know what made today different of all days.

She set her face against further questions and the concern began to edge off his face as he felt challenged by her refusal to answer. Well, if she was going to be like that, he was going to feel less bad and more determined to get an answer out of her. Gabby crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, getting comfortable once again as he studied her for a good few moments, letting the silence between them drag on and on. Silence was not something Gabby thrived in, but he knew how to manage it, and he wanted this time for Irene to feel the situation between them, feel the futility in trying to get him to drop the subject. Gabby was obnoxious in that he rarely dropped a conversation for the sake of someone else’s feelings.

He finally broke it. “Something I said upset you.” He spoke calmly, very unlike Gabby usually spoke. He sounded like the son of a businessman, for once in his life. “If you don’t tell me what it was, chances are, I’ll say it again and I don’t want to do that - unless I know it’s for a stupid reason, of course.” Couldn’t keep real Gabby out of it, it seemed. “But I’d rather not continue on in blind ignorance. I’ll leave once you tell me what I said that bothered you so much.”

Irene had never considered herself a stubborn woman, though her actions told a much different story. In her early Hogwarts years, before she had been taught the norms of social behavior, the Ravenclaw had been trademarked by her tenancy for heated debates in History of Magic and Muggle Studies, unwilling to drop her opinion even when faced with a no-win situation. Quite to the contrary, poor odds seemed to only make the girl more determined and, at times, quite intolerable.

This appeared to be one of those occasions. The longer Gabriel resisted his departure the more set she became on making him leave. She gladly accepted this emotional shift - blind stubbornness was easier to manage than spontaneous grief.

Gabriel straitened in his chair and Irene stared back at him. Their eyes locked in a sort of challenge as the seconds ticked by at a hellishly slow speed. She noted his posture relaxing back into the Gabriel Short that she had the displeasure of knowing so well. His shock at her response had evidently worn off as he filled the air with the deadly silence - testing her, always testing her.

As a professional, Irene couldn't stand for this blatant conflict in her place of work. As a person, she couldn't stand that it was personal.

The lapse in conversation was, strangely, almost easier. Irene had been top of her class at Hogwarts and for years her satisfactions had came from the cutthroat academic contests that she had ongoing with her classmates. When you belonged to a house composed of only the best and brightest - all indefinitely devoted to their educations - rivalry was the only natural thing. Just because she had never been interested in sports didn't mean there was no competitive streak.

In some ways, that was what her 'working' relationship with Gabriel had always been - a long, seemingly endless battle. Rules vs. disorder, professionalism vs. immaturity, doing her job vs. being throw off course. Right now there was no question who was winning (if the uneasy feeling in her stomach wasn't a giveaway, the total thirty seconds they had spent discussing werewolf matters showed it).

He had cheated today, crossing an invisible line that had thrown her off balance. “Something I said upset you.” It seemed he really didn't know. That made him a fool and Irene wasn't sure if that was better or worse than if he had just been the arse she assumed him to be. "I don’t want to do that" She hated the tone of his voice - calm, articulate, altogether too close to sincere. It was truly awful to listen to and Irene felt her eyebrow shoot up in involuntary response to her distaste.  

"But I’d rather not continue on in blind ignorance." There was nothing Irene wanted more than Gabriel to continue to be 'blindly ignorant'. Pity nauseated her. The funeral had been unbearable as family, friends, and near strangers had taken their turn passing her around with teary eyes and condolences for the pain they couldn't possibly imagine. In some strange way the comfort was almost insulting to her - to Rufus's memory - but no one understood how desperately she needed to just keep going.

If she stopped for too long she was sure she would drown.

"I’ll leave once you tell me what I said that bothered you so much." Irene allowed a second of silence to settle again between them as she organized her thoughts with an unimpressed expression on her face. "You are in no potion to make demands," her hand skimmed across the file marked 'Gabriel Short III' that rested on the desk, "I hope you realize that." Very professional, a voice chimed in at the back of her head. Because blackmail would certainly solve everything.

A flicker of anger took hold and she couldn't stop herself from continuing. "Besides, Mr. Short," she leered, "it's really none of your goddamn business, is it?" Irene sat back in her chair, mirroring his casual posture as she mentally cursed herself. While the words had a satisfying smack as they fell off her tongue he had also won - Irene had lost her cool, if only for a moment. She stared across the desk as if to dare him to have a comeback.

Gabby did not like being serious. It went against every natural tendency in the goofy flirt's body. Why go for sincerity when there was sass? Why choose patience when there was snark? Why appeasef when one could instead irritate or prod or exasperate? Sure, he knew how to be serious, but Gabby had taken a theatre workshop once or twice (he sometimes just did things) and the instructors always said to make the more interesting choice. In his opinion, serious was always the least interesting choice. He supposed it was just his curse to be the most interesting man in Britain. Okay, that wasn't too accurate. The most interesting man in the world.

Nay, the universe.

Despite popular belief, Gabby did, on occassion, choose to be serious. He preferred goofy, but there were times to reconsider. Such as now. In all his acquaintance with Irene Norwood, she had never broken so heinously. Gabby was pretty observant, and he knew Irene to be perfectly in control and professional to a tee. And yet here she was, showing signs of fluster, surprise, and (dare he say/think it?) unprofessional. And he found that this sudden lapse was one of the biggest temptations he had ever faced in this office - and there had always been plenty.

His desire to be a brat was losing his itch to amend his great curiosity. Why was it, after so much time being annoyed by him, Irene suddenly lost it on one of his lamer zings. He would be a fool not to inspect it. As a student of human nature, he could not help but be intrigued by a human's tendency to be hurt by specific things. It was the things that intigued him. Why this? Why that? How could loss or pain or rudeness or cruelty infect people worse than the plague? Why did people allow themselves to fall sick? It intigued the man who found very little reason to be sad.

He was rudely informed that he was in no position to make demands, so Gabby grumpily crossed his arms and frowned at her. He wanted to say it was no demand, but he had in fact used an incredibly demanding tone of voice. He did not like that she had said something that he could not completely argue with. "Thank you for reminding me," Gabby said.

She told him to get out without having to repeat the sentiment. He stood and walked towards the door, stopping in the doorwar. It was never a true Gabby appointment if he didn't get the last word. "I know I'm a cranky bastard, but you can't be mad at me for being such if you're going to be a stiff one yourself." He raised an eyebrow and said, "I actually meant it. I'm not solely insufferable. I'm a person. You might not figure, seeing as I'm your werewolf ward but I do understand a shred of humanity when I see one. It suits you better than heartless robot anyway." And with that, he pushed the door open and strode out.

A moment later, he pushed his way inside and grabbed a map off the wall, rolled it up, and strode out again, diginified as anything.