Fic- Five Things That Never Happened to Gabriel Gray
Title: Five Things That Never Happened to Gabriel Gray
Author: Butterflyweb
Pairing: Mohinder/Gabriel, Gabriel/other
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Gabriel and Mohinder are not mine. :( Everything else is, though, so nyah.
Warnings: Non-con (nothing graphic)
Summary: One thing that never happened, three that could've, and one we all assume did.
1) Meetings
The bell over the door chimes lightly, shaking him out of his thoughts. The watch in front of him (Swiss, 1958) lies abandoned, his tools scattered about the otherwise orderly table. It is to his chagrin that he notices he’s been biting his nails again, and sighing, he removes his glasses and looks towards the door.
“Can I help you?” he asks, the phrase stale with use, and rises.
Standing at the door, looking around with poorly disguised interest, is an man about Gabriel’s age, though shorter and far more attractive. He quashes the last observation in embarrassment and steps forward, repeating his question.
“Oh, yes, my apologies,” the other man murmurs, coming back to himself. A blinding smile comes easily to his features and he reaches out a hand in greeting.
Gabriel hesitates before taking it, but does, though he ends it rather quickly, crossing his arms protectively over his chest. He gives the man a self-conscious grin, hoping not to offend him and nods at the watch on his wrist.
“I can fix it,” he says, and winces a little at the tone that comes into his voice. He’s been told before that his fascinations were off-putting, and for some reason, the last thing he wants to do is make this man think he’s crazy.
“Thank God,” the other man exclaims, relief thick in his voice. “If my fiancé sees I’ve broken it, you have no idea what kind of trouble I’ll be in.”
Nodding uncomfortably, Gabriel holds his hand out, anxious to get to work and end the small talk. As nice as the other man’s voice is, polite conversation has always made him ridiculously nervous, as if it were a test of some kind.
The watch feels heavy and warm as it is placed in his palm, and he tries to ignore the brush of fingers against his own. The other man’s smile is starting to hurt his eyes, and ducking his head, he asks for the name.
“Mohinder Suresh,” the man says, his musical tones eveloping the words, leaving Gabriel’s throat rather dry.
“Mohinder Suresh,” he repeats, cursing himself for butchering it, and bids farewell, with promises to have the watch ready in two hours.
The bell whispers a goodbye, ushering the man (Mohinder) out into the street, fading away into the passing noise of traffic. Gabriel takes a deep breath and returns to his work station, brushing aside the old watch (Swiss, 1958) for the new one (Rolex, 2005) and picking up his tools.
Two hours, he’d said. Gabriels sets to work, the clocks ticking a background rhythym, and for the first time since he was fifteen, counts the seconds.
2) Liasons
The red light of the darkroom hurts his eyes.
He tells himself this is the reason he’s keeping them closed, his glasses lying abandoned on the cluttered shelf. The linoleum floor is cold and unyielding under his knees, and the acrid scent of developing fluid is making him dizzy. A large, warm hand brushes his face, and if he feels like throwing up, he blames it on the ammonia.
He hears the soft clink of leather and metal, shudders as the cheap, skinny belt is fastened around his wrists. He wants to say no, let me out, please stop, but the words die in his throat and he tries to focus on something else. Conjugates latin verbs in his head, listens to the soft tick of the egg timer, anything but the press of denim against his lips and acrylic-stained fingers carding through his hair.
“Gabriel…”
The name falls from somewhere above him, like a raindrop off a shuddering leaf. He likes that analogy, tucks it away in his head for when they write free-verse next week in English. His jaw is aching and hot, wet somethings are burning paths down his cheeks, but he doesn’t pay attention to them. He wonders how his photos are turning out, regrets that he can’t watch the pictures bloom into life. There are grunts and shudders and moans, and a too-tight grip on his shoulder.
He chokes, and coughs, and wonders whether or not Hawthorne really intended the symbolism in his novels and why Mrs. Gerardi always has a lipstick stain on her front teeth. The leather slides off of his wrists, scraping against the ever-present welts, and slowly, he rocks back on his heels. Stands. Endures the post-coital press of lips. The thumb tracing his cheek.
“Good night, Mr. Bowman,” he murmurs, and leaves.
3) Circumstances
His mouth is sticky with cotton candy and coca-cola, but the blue-haired lady behind the ticket stand smiles at him, offering to hold his stuffed panda. He shakes his head, glasses wobbling on his nose, and climbs confindently into the cab, sucking in a sharp breath as the wheel starts to turn.
Beneath him, the lights of Coney Island sparkle, carnival music droning out of funnel shaped loudspeakers. He watches as the people shrink, turning from toy army men into hundred of swarming ants. Gabriel giggles and pretends to squish them between thumb and forefinger, leaning dangerously over the metal safety bar.
Losing interest, he turns to observe the other people on the ride. In front of him, two older kids are making silly smacking noises and pressing their faces together. Necking, his grandmother calls it, and he laughs when the girl smacks the boy, his hand halfway down her pink shirt. They start to yell and Gabriel grows bored, turning around on the worn plastic seat, his bear in a choke hold under his arm.
Behind him are three people. A mother and a father and a little boy with an upturned nose. Gabriel waves, but they don’t notice. The little boy is tucked under his father’s heavy arm, fast asleep, and the mother and father are smiling at each other, talking quietly, hands clasped. Gabriel frowns and turns back in his seat, his too-short legs dangling above the floor of the cab.
The ride comes to an end, and grinning, he jumps out, nearly tripping on his untied shoelaces, and races to the end of the exit ramp. He waits for arms to embrace him, for a strong hand to ruffle his tangled hair, for smiles and hand-holding and being tucked against his father’s side.
But all he sees are the crowds of people, laughing and chattering, eating their popcorn and funnel cakes. He searches in vain, glasses slipping to the end of his nose, and biting his lower lip, turns back to the ticket counter, ready to board the Wonder Wheel for the fifth time.
The blue-haired lady’s smile is starting to look concerned, but Gabriel gives her a wobbly, gap-toothed grin and hands over his ticket. “They’re meeting me here,” he says, in perfect six-year old confidence, and the woman nods sadly.
Panda under his arm, he climbs in the cab.
4) Liberations
A hot mouth is pressed to his collarbone, sucking lightly. Fingernails scrape against his hips, leaving angry red lines in their wake. He feels almost suffocated, drowning in the scent of sweat and cheap shampoo, trapped between a smooth chest and a soft mattress. He tries to breathe, to suck in precious air, but every drag of a warm palm over his thigh leaves him gasping.
Its too, too much and Mohinder’s smile is blinding him, those dark eyes trapping him, and how can anything feel this way? Like hot coals and desperate need and carefully aged wine, slipping down the back of his throat and god.
He twists and chokes, tangling his fingers in ebony curls and pulling the other man closer, wanting him inside, so far, so deep, until they can’t tell one another apart, until he is everything and nothing and he needs Mohinder to kiss him, to touch mouths, touch tongues. The touch of a slender thigh against his hip, of scorching heat against his belly.
He can’t bear it, thinks he might die in the space between every delicious, slow thrust and there’s honeyed, musical laughter in his ear, hot breath tickling his neck, and Mohinder is teasing him, goddamn him, drawing this out until he can’t see, can’t think, can just feel hot, slick skin and a thousand firecrackers setting off behind his eyes.
It’s chaos, frantic and confusing and he can’t tell where Mohinder begins and he ends. A thousand carefully built, well-maintained defences are crumbling around him, crashing down around his ears, nothing but silence and strangled moans echoing inside his head, and finally, Gabriel thinks, finally he is free.
5) Awakenings
The February air was harsh and unforgiving, chapping his lips and reddening his ears. Gabriel was, to his own amazement, sweating and freezing at the same time, panting as he dug the shovel in deep once more, struggling to push the snow to the side.
Pausing, he tugged his hat down and sniffled a bit before picking up the shovel again. As he did, a glint of sunlight on metal caught his eye, and wrinkling his nose, he went to investigate.
The bowl of cat food, bought with his own meager allowance and laid out despite his father’s disapproval, had been licked clean. Gabriel grinned. The strays in his neighborhood were a distrusting lot, but he’d never cared. After months of begging his parents for his own to no avail, he’d settled for feeding the mangy toms that hid beneath the stoop.
He’d just bent down to pick up the bowl when he heard a high-pitched yowl. Whirling around, he instantly saw the cause of the noise. Clenching his jaw, he curled his fingers into tight fists as he watched Abe Frankel, the neighbor’s son, take aim once more with his air rifle.
Biting his lip near to the point of bleeding, he flinched violently as the BB struck the poor cat in the shoulder. The tom cried in pain, hissing and raising its hackles. Abe laughed, advancing on the cornered creature.
Gabriel’s stomach was doing sick little flip flops as he stood there, anxious, but saying nothing. He still had the scar from where Abe had pushed him off the stoop two years ago, landing on a broken bottle. The other boy had grown no friendlier since then, and Gabriel had a sick feeling that any noise on his part would get the rifle turned on him.
The next shot hit the tom’s front paw, sending it down in the snow, instantly crippled.
Breathing heavily, he watched Abe take another step forward, raising the air rifle once more to his shoulder. Something in the other boy’s laughter hit Gabriel right in the stomach, and without thinking, he hurled the metal bowl with all of his might, striking the taller boy on the shoulder.
Abe’s head whipped up to stare at him, an ugly sneer marring his features. Picking up the bowl, he grinned before firing it back at Gabriel, catching him full in the face. The impact snapped his glasses in two, shattering the lens and bloodying his nose. Ignoring Gabriel’s cries, the older boy shouldered his air rifle and fired a shot directly at the tom’s head, killing it instantly.
Gabirel sat, horrified, blood streaming down his face as he looked at the poor, mangled creature, lying limp in the snow. His breathing grew loud in his ears, until it became a dull, rushing, white noise. He looked at Abe, a strange, calm feeling creeping up his spine, spreading into his jaw, behind his eyes. The rushing sound grew louder, like the crashing of waves on the breaker, and steadily, his vision went black.
When he came back to himself, all he could hear was screaming. The snow shovel was clenched tightly in his fists, stained red. Blood was everywhere, dripping into his eyes, pooling in the snow, painting the left side of Abe’s face. The older boy was flat on his back, eyes open and staring, jaw smashed in. His chest rose and fell faintly, barely visible under his heavy jacket. Hands were clutching at Gabriel, prying the shovel away, and dimly he realized the screaming was his own. His mother had him by the arm, press-on nails digging through his jacket, dragging him inside the house. In the distance, he could hear an ambulance siren.
His mother was talking frantically, mumbling a constant stream of noise as she sat him down in the kitchen, trying to be heard over his father’s shouts as she wiped his face clean. He supposed he must be crying, as she kept trying to shush him, and with a shudder, he closed his eyes.
In the back of his mind, something smiled.
Cross-posted to
mylar_ficSorry to those of you who are seeing it twice. :)
Author: Butterflyweb
Pairing: Mohinder/Gabriel, Gabriel/other
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Gabriel and Mohinder are not mine. :( Everything else is, though, so nyah.
Warnings: Non-con (nothing graphic)
Summary: One thing that never happened, three that could've, and one we all assume did.
1) Meetings
The bell over the door chimes lightly, shaking him out of his thoughts. The watch in front of him (Swiss, 1958) lies abandoned, his tools scattered about the otherwise orderly table. It is to his chagrin that he notices he’s been biting his nails again, and sighing, he removes his glasses and looks towards the door.
“Can I help you?” he asks, the phrase stale with use, and rises.
Standing at the door, looking around with poorly disguised interest, is an man about Gabriel’s age, though shorter and far more attractive. He quashes the last observation in embarrassment and steps forward, repeating his question.
“Oh, yes, my apologies,” the other man murmurs, coming back to himself. A blinding smile comes easily to his features and he reaches out a hand in greeting.
Gabriel hesitates before taking it, but does, though he ends it rather quickly, crossing his arms protectively over his chest. He gives the man a self-conscious grin, hoping not to offend him and nods at the watch on his wrist.
“I can fix it,” he says, and winces a little at the tone that comes into his voice. He’s been told before that his fascinations were off-putting, and for some reason, the last thing he wants to do is make this man think he’s crazy.
“Thank God,” the other man exclaims, relief thick in his voice. “If my fiancé sees I’ve broken it, you have no idea what kind of trouble I’ll be in.”
Nodding uncomfortably, Gabriel holds his hand out, anxious to get to work and end the small talk. As nice as the other man’s voice is, polite conversation has always made him ridiculously nervous, as if it were a test of some kind.
The watch feels heavy and warm as it is placed in his palm, and he tries to ignore the brush of fingers against his own. The other man’s smile is starting to hurt his eyes, and ducking his head, he asks for the name.
“Mohinder Suresh,” the man says, his musical tones eveloping the words, leaving Gabriel’s throat rather dry.
“Mohinder Suresh,” he repeats, cursing himself for butchering it, and bids farewell, with promises to have the watch ready in two hours.
The bell whispers a goodbye, ushering the man (Mohinder) out into the street, fading away into the passing noise of traffic. Gabriel takes a deep breath and returns to his work station, brushing aside the old watch (Swiss, 1958) for the new one (Rolex, 2005) and picking up his tools.
Two hours, he’d said. Gabriels sets to work, the clocks ticking a background rhythym, and for the first time since he was fifteen, counts the seconds.
2) Liasons
The red light of the darkroom hurts his eyes.
He tells himself this is the reason he’s keeping them closed, his glasses lying abandoned on the cluttered shelf. The linoleum floor is cold and unyielding under his knees, and the acrid scent of developing fluid is making him dizzy. A large, warm hand brushes his face, and if he feels like throwing up, he blames it on the ammonia.
He hears the soft clink of leather and metal, shudders as the cheap, skinny belt is fastened around his wrists. He wants to say no, let me out, please stop, but the words die in his throat and he tries to focus on something else. Conjugates latin verbs in his head, listens to the soft tick of the egg timer, anything but the press of denim against his lips and acrylic-stained fingers carding through his hair.
“Gabriel…”
The name falls from somewhere above him, like a raindrop off a shuddering leaf. He likes that analogy, tucks it away in his head for when they write free-verse next week in English. His jaw is aching and hot, wet somethings are burning paths down his cheeks, but he doesn’t pay attention to them. He wonders how his photos are turning out, regrets that he can’t watch the pictures bloom into life. There are grunts and shudders and moans, and a too-tight grip on his shoulder.
He chokes, and coughs, and wonders whether or not Hawthorne really intended the symbolism in his novels and why Mrs. Gerardi always has a lipstick stain on her front teeth. The leather slides off of his wrists, scraping against the ever-present welts, and slowly, he rocks back on his heels. Stands. Endures the post-coital press of lips. The thumb tracing his cheek.
“Good night, Mr. Bowman,” he murmurs, and leaves.
3) Circumstances
His mouth is sticky with cotton candy and coca-cola, but the blue-haired lady behind the ticket stand smiles at him, offering to hold his stuffed panda. He shakes his head, glasses wobbling on his nose, and climbs confindently into the cab, sucking in a sharp breath as the wheel starts to turn.
Beneath him, the lights of Coney Island sparkle, carnival music droning out of funnel shaped loudspeakers. He watches as the people shrink, turning from toy army men into hundred of swarming ants. Gabriel giggles and pretends to squish them between thumb and forefinger, leaning dangerously over the metal safety bar.
Losing interest, he turns to observe the other people on the ride. In front of him, two older kids are making silly smacking noises and pressing their faces together. Necking, his grandmother calls it, and he laughs when the girl smacks the boy, his hand halfway down her pink shirt. They start to yell and Gabriel grows bored, turning around on the worn plastic seat, his bear in a choke hold under his arm.
Behind him are three people. A mother and a father and a little boy with an upturned nose. Gabriel waves, but they don’t notice. The little boy is tucked under his father’s heavy arm, fast asleep, and the mother and father are smiling at each other, talking quietly, hands clasped. Gabriel frowns and turns back in his seat, his too-short legs dangling above the floor of the cab.
The ride comes to an end, and grinning, he jumps out, nearly tripping on his untied shoelaces, and races to the end of the exit ramp. He waits for arms to embrace him, for a strong hand to ruffle his tangled hair, for smiles and hand-holding and being tucked against his father’s side.
But all he sees are the crowds of people, laughing and chattering, eating their popcorn and funnel cakes. He searches in vain, glasses slipping to the end of his nose, and biting his lower lip, turns back to the ticket counter, ready to board the Wonder Wheel for the fifth time.
The blue-haired lady’s smile is starting to look concerned, but Gabriel gives her a wobbly, gap-toothed grin and hands over his ticket. “They’re meeting me here,” he says, in perfect six-year old confidence, and the woman nods sadly.
Panda under his arm, he climbs in the cab.
4) Liberations
A hot mouth is pressed to his collarbone, sucking lightly. Fingernails scrape against his hips, leaving angry red lines in their wake. He feels almost suffocated, drowning in the scent of sweat and cheap shampoo, trapped between a smooth chest and a soft mattress. He tries to breathe, to suck in precious air, but every drag of a warm palm over his thigh leaves him gasping.
Its too, too much and Mohinder’s smile is blinding him, those dark eyes trapping him, and how can anything feel this way? Like hot coals and desperate need and carefully aged wine, slipping down the back of his throat and god.
He twists and chokes, tangling his fingers in ebony curls and pulling the other man closer, wanting him inside, so far, so deep, until they can’t tell one another apart, until he is everything and nothing and he needs Mohinder to kiss him, to touch mouths, touch tongues. The touch of a slender thigh against his hip, of scorching heat against his belly.
He can’t bear it, thinks he might die in the space between every delicious, slow thrust and there’s honeyed, musical laughter in his ear, hot breath tickling his neck, and Mohinder is teasing him, goddamn him, drawing this out until he can’t see, can’t think, can just feel hot, slick skin and a thousand firecrackers setting off behind his eyes.
It’s chaos, frantic and confusing and he can’t tell where Mohinder begins and he ends. A thousand carefully built, well-maintained defences are crumbling around him, crashing down around his ears, nothing but silence and strangled moans echoing inside his head, and finally, Gabriel thinks, finally he is free.
5) Awakenings
The February air was harsh and unforgiving, chapping his lips and reddening his ears. Gabriel was, to his own amazement, sweating and freezing at the same time, panting as he dug the shovel in deep once more, struggling to push the snow to the side.
Pausing, he tugged his hat down and sniffled a bit before picking up the shovel again. As he did, a glint of sunlight on metal caught his eye, and wrinkling his nose, he went to investigate.
The bowl of cat food, bought with his own meager allowance and laid out despite his father’s disapproval, had been licked clean. Gabriel grinned. The strays in his neighborhood were a distrusting lot, but he’d never cared. After months of begging his parents for his own to no avail, he’d settled for feeding the mangy toms that hid beneath the stoop.
He’d just bent down to pick up the bowl when he heard a high-pitched yowl. Whirling around, he instantly saw the cause of the noise. Clenching his jaw, he curled his fingers into tight fists as he watched Abe Frankel, the neighbor’s son, take aim once more with his air rifle.
Biting his lip near to the point of bleeding, he flinched violently as the BB struck the poor cat in the shoulder. The tom cried in pain, hissing and raising its hackles. Abe laughed, advancing on the cornered creature.
Gabriel’s stomach was doing sick little flip flops as he stood there, anxious, but saying nothing. He still had the scar from where Abe had pushed him off the stoop two years ago, landing on a broken bottle. The other boy had grown no friendlier since then, and Gabriel had a sick feeling that any noise on his part would get the rifle turned on him.
The next shot hit the tom’s front paw, sending it down in the snow, instantly crippled.
Breathing heavily, he watched Abe take another step forward, raising the air rifle once more to his shoulder. Something in the other boy’s laughter hit Gabriel right in the stomach, and without thinking, he hurled the metal bowl with all of his might, striking the taller boy on the shoulder.
Abe’s head whipped up to stare at him, an ugly sneer marring his features. Picking up the bowl, he grinned before firing it back at Gabriel, catching him full in the face. The impact snapped his glasses in two, shattering the lens and bloodying his nose. Ignoring Gabriel’s cries, the older boy shouldered his air rifle and fired a shot directly at the tom’s head, killing it instantly.
Gabirel sat, horrified, blood streaming down his face as he looked at the poor, mangled creature, lying limp in the snow. His breathing grew loud in his ears, until it became a dull, rushing, white noise. He looked at Abe, a strange, calm feeling creeping up his spine, spreading into his jaw, behind his eyes. The rushing sound grew louder, like the crashing of waves on the breaker, and steadily, his vision went black.
When he came back to himself, all he could hear was screaming. The snow shovel was clenched tightly in his fists, stained red. Blood was everywhere, dripping into his eyes, pooling in the snow, painting the left side of Abe’s face. The older boy was flat on his back, eyes open and staring, jaw smashed in. His chest rose and fell faintly, barely visible under his heavy jacket. Hands were clutching at Gabriel, prying the shovel away, and dimly he realized the screaming was his own. His mother had him by the arm, press-on nails digging through his jacket, dragging him inside the house. In the distance, he could hear an ambulance siren.
His mother was talking frantically, mumbling a constant stream of noise as she sat him down in the kitchen, trying to be heard over his father’s shouts as she wiped his face clean. He supposed he must be crying, as she kept trying to shush him, and with a shudder, he closed his eyes.
In the back of his mind, something smiled.
Cross-posted to
mylar_ficSorry to those of you who are seeing it twice. :)