In which Gabriel stops being a pacifist Who: Gabriel and OPEN What: Somebody got into a fight Where: Anywhere between the sneak-out trees and Gabriel's room When: Wednesday night Rating: SFW
It had been a week. A solid week of a single room, of an empty bed to stare at from his own, of a desk bare of scraps of paper and more colors of pencil than Gabriel had thought existed. Half of Gabriel's room was pristine now, the other half merely empty, and the whole room felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the ancient heating system of the dorms that would only work when it felt like it and not a day sooner.
Gabriel felt cold.
No.
Gabriel felt angry.
He swallowed it down, every time he looked at Scottie's things, a little bubble of mad and hurt and confused, but little bubbles had a tendency to build up. Gabriel was angry now, furious. The punching bag had taken several beatings, but Gabriel hated it.
It didn't fight back.
That was why Gabriel had dressed to go running before he slipped over the wall one evening, gracefully shimmying up one of the trees and leaping from the other. He took off toward Westerville at a jog, heading for the bad parts of town. Westerville wasn't very big, but there was a distinct class division. Dalton and Haverstone anchored the rich half, attracting families of wealth. Westerville Public Schools sat firmly in the bad half to the southeast, surrounded by crumbling houses that were an eyesore, really, and couldn't they just be torn down already?
Gabriel put his headphones in as he jogged, giving his Dalton sweatshirt one more tug to make sure it was obvious what school he came from. He wanted to taunt the public school boys. The Daltonites weren't so revered this far away from their gates and their wealth. Surely a lone, apparently oblivious student would be a tempting target for some of their own angry ones...
It was after curfew when Gabriel returned to Dalton, feeling marginally better. He retraced his route through the trees and landed gently on the school side of the fence, lifting a hand to brush his fingers over his split lip. They had gotten a few hits in themselves. He might have a black eye tomorrow, and his lip was already puffy, but Gabriel felt a certain smugness in the knowledge that he had won this fight.