I Hate Them - Gabriel and Virginia

[watchmakersylar]

Characters: Gabriel, Virginia
Fandom: Heroes
Rating: G
Word Count: 821
Prompt: 14/100 #88 School 100heroesfics Blackadder: The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the Devil's own satanic HERD. scifi_muses
Notes: Gabriel in the hell known as high school

The AV lab was too cold. I was surprised I couldn’t see my breath as I wove my way through the broken film strip projectors, overhead display tables and movie projectors. A lot of this stuff wasn’t used anymore. Other than the hideous masterpieces like Mechanized Death, most of the movies we watched were on video tape now or beta. Those machines broke too, but the nuns didn’t let the students fix those. No they sat on their rolling tables like kings among their fallen soldiers.

I felt bad for the old machines. Their insides unbalanced, wires frayed and gears worn through until they couldn’t function properly anymore. A lot of them were here in this graveyard to be scavenged for parts. This was my favorite place in the entire school. I felt at home here and no one bothered me while I tinkered.

One of the projectors was making a horrible clicking sound. I heard it during Sister Louise’s home economics class when they had me come in and run the movie for her. I wanted to fix it then. It made the skin on my spine tighten to hear those gears grinding together wrong. But she said it was good enough, that they could still watch it fine. It didn’t bother her that the sound was off by half a second. It set my teeth on edge.

So now I was looking through the piles and boxes of scavenged parts looking for a replacement for one of those tattered old gears. It needed a new set of belts too, but I wasn’t sure I’d find any of those in my treasure.

A loud crash yanked my attention from my search. I hissed as one of the gears sliced my hand open. One of the girls had stumbled into the room. Her hair was a mess, her blouse gaping open and her face was covered in tears. Her name was Mindy. She was a first class bitch, and she’d never once been nice to me like the rest of the popular girls.

“You have to hide me!” she cried out, rushing up to me and clutching my sweater. “He’s chasing me.”

“Who’s chasing you? Wait here.” I tried to pry her hands free, the blood from my hand soaking into her white blouse. I could see her bra, and I felt myself blush. I climbed through the projectors and went to close the door leaving a smear of blood there too. My heart was hammering. She was afraid.

As soon as the door was closed it was hit from behind. A loud crash like a freight train had slammed into it. I jumped back, tripping over a box of parts and landed on my ass on the floor. I scurried back, hoping to hell that the lock would hold. It was one the best locks in the school, meant to protect all the equipment.

“I don’t know. He grabbed me. I ran.”

The door shuddered in its frame as it was hit again. I was helpless I couldn’t do a thing to save her or me. What was I going to do, stab whoever it was with my screwdriver? Think, Gabriel, you have to think, but I was too scared.

“Save me, Gabriel! Save me!” Then Mindy started giggling. It was an ugly little laugh. The same one I heard whenever one of the football players shoved me against the wall by ‘accident’, or I got tripped in the lunchroom. She was still laughing when she opened the door and slipped into her boyfriend’s arms. Now he was laughing too, so was the rest of the team.

“I hate you!” I screamed at their backs as they left me there to bleed. “You are all going to be sorry.”

***
“Hold still, Gabriel.” My mother held my hand under the kitchen sink. I watched as she poured dishwashing liquid over my cut and fought back a yelp at the water’s sting. She forced the cut open, running the water and soap into it until it stopped bleeding. “This is going to scar. Why didn’t you go to the nurse at school? I should take you to the doctor.”

“I don’t want to go to the doctor, mom. Please just put a Band-Aid on it and let it go.”

She was clucking like a chicken as she wrapped a dish towel around my hand. “Who did this to you, Gabriel?”

“It was an accident. No one did it to me.” No one that I wanted my mother ranting at like she did when I was younger and someone hurt me. Always the lioness, my mother, no matter how weak that made me look to the hyenas as school. “I tripped in the AV room.”

***
They snickered when I came to school the next morning. I could feel all of their eyes watching me. I hated each and everyone of them.

Comments

[i-amsherlocked.livejournal.com]

So very much like I pictured Gabriel as a kid...

[wytchcroft.livejournal.com]

glad i caught this:))

[beshter.livejournal.com]

Poor guy, you sorta hope he goes and pokes each of their brains out one of these days.

[bellonablack.livejournal.com]

Very much well-written. As always.

I can see why he went for the power in the end.

[xerotheory90.livejournal.com]

*like*

[remmy117.livejournal.com]

Why does it remind me of my days in high school... lol