Vigilante Justice [Closed]

[Dr. Sean Neville]

There was no need for Chase to guess that that what he said was true; Sean was aware of the truth in his own motivations. If Chase was going to get out of this in one piece, he needed a second, and Sean wouldn’t feel right letting him rush off alone, not when he had the ability to keep an eye out. It was making the best of a bad situation; ideally, nobody would go, but barring that, at least the younger man need not go alone. He heard Chase’s thought about power, which was flattering albeit true; Chase’s power was more offensively useful but Sean’s mental barriers were in a completely different class; he had learned from the best and he had risen to take Robert’s place after his death. “We can brief and then plan slowly. He’s good at covering his tracks.” Gabriel always had been, which was why he didn’t have the disciplinary record befitting his sadism.

The psychiatrist still doubted that they could necessarily get close to Gabriel. They didn’t know where he was, and they didn’t know how many people were working with him, or what their powers were. If they had physical combatants, there were problems. While Sean was large and could throw his weight around, he was getting on in years and his knees hurt; besides that, he could handle a bar fight but he wasn’t a fighter at heart, not when it came to actual violence. And there were only two of them. It would fall to Chase to use his mind control to stop potential attackers, which would drain the younger man of his energy and would bring on a migraine, all before they got close enough to Gabriel. And Sean played percentages because it was logical; if Gabriel detected them within his range but out of Chase’s, they were also in for a huge vat of trouble. But he would have to strategize with the younger man when they had leads and he was in more of a mood to listen; otherwise it was a waste of breath. And at least the trainer had accepted the needed to wait and watch, for now; that was the first hurdle.

He didn’t like lying. Sean did so frequently because it was part and parcel of being a telepath and a psychiatrist, but his acceptance of the necessity didn’t mean he liked it. He particularly didn’t like lying to friends or finding himself having to choose between parties in a domestic relationship. James should know, morally as well as out of obligation for their relationship and because they had a child to look after. But at the end of the day, it wasn’t Sean’s affair to get involved in, and thus he could compromise. “I won’t go out of my way to tell him,” he promised the younger man. “But I’ll only do a limited cover up. I won’t tell anyone else what we’re doing, and I expect you to handle the lies, but if he asks me point blank, I won’t lie to him.” That was the best he could offer, and Chase would have to accept it.

The telepath rose then and went to retrieve a pen and a pad to begin jotting down ideas. “We’ll get started on places to research and go from there.”

[Chase Campbell]

Chase still had the confidence of a teenager. And with that kind of confidence in play, he hadn’t seen the need for a second person. But the more he thought about it, the more sense it made. He could trust Sean with this. He wouldn’t have to fight, he wouldn’t have to put himself in danger. Chase was willing to do all that. Because he was fairly sure that he could get to Gabriel before Gabriel could get to him. “As long as we can get to him in the end. That’s all I need.” They could plan and brief all they wanted, but as long as the end result was the same, the blond man would be happy.

What he wanted was a tracker, but they’d already covered that. Doing this the old fashioned way would take longer than he’d like, but they really had no other option. He knew that. He could fight hand to hand. He was strong enough for that. He didn’t have weapons, but he didn’t expect to have the need for them. He wasn’t normally an advocate for violence, but when he was faced with a situation like this, he knew he had it in him. He could make Underwood pay. Then things would be even, and go back to normal. Nowhere in this plan did he really think that James would be proud of him for this. But he’d just have to forgive him. He was just trying to make things right, his way. He wasn’t thinking of percentages or Gabriel’s back up squad. Nothing. In his mind, it would be a simple one on one encounter. Challenging, yes. But not impossible.

Chase didn’t like the idea of lying to James either. But if he came out and told the truth, well... it wouldn’t go over all that well. He was sure of it. He never lied to his husband. Not if he could help it. And lying in their household had become a touchy thing, ever since the Adam fiasco had come to light. Chase glanced at Sean, who said... pretty well what he would have expected him to. “I know. It’s not your job to lie to him.” It wasn’t Chase’s either, but the way he saw it, he was protecting James. He didn’t have to know until this was over.

Once the pad and pen appeared, Chase leaned forward, eager to start. “Let’s go.” Whatever it took, he was going to do it.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“We’ll try.” Sean wasn’t going to make a promise he couldn’t keep, and that included both finding Gabriel Underwood, and then going the step further and beating him. Sean’s abilities were sufficient to keep himself safe, which is why he would make the perfect second. But he also wasn’t an attack dog. “Even after we find him, we’ll need to do some surveillance and map out the area wherever he is.” That was a typical aspect of tactics and strategy, although one which Sean studied only remotely; after all, for what reason would a relative pacifist need to have studied war practices?

With the pad and pen ready, Sean began making notes about what they would need to do. He would merge this list with the file he kept on suspicious global and national activities, suspicious political acts, suspicious deaths, random acts of violence...all of the incidents in the news that he flagged as potentially belonging to Gabriel. It was a large file, and one that would grow ever larger as they combed through the news with a fine-tooth comb.

“Tell him we’re cleaning my garage.” Sean wouldn’t say that to James himself, but it was a fair lie. His garage was filthy and disorganized, and James wouldn’t want to find himself inside for more than five minutes before his perception would cause him to go mad. As such, it was unlikely for James to want to accompany Chase on this task, and it would allow Chase to freely go to and from Sean’s house without further questioning. That would limit the probability of James asking Sean questions about what happened and would thus limit his involvement in coverup.

Moving on to the next sheet of paper, he began to write down comparative information on Gabriel’s puppetry and Chase’s mind control, to illustrate the difference. He also began to write down the answers to the prior questions and any additional information necessary, all the while explaining to Chase as he wrote.

So it begins.