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[fixeswatches]

Gabriel had barely even wanted to go to school. He wanted to stay home and practice his telekinesis more. He hadn't mastered it yet, after all, and that was much more exciting than anything that was bound to happen at school. But he knew he had to go in order to not let his mother know anything was up. The last thing he wanted to do right now was make her suspicious. Not when they were going to be leaving soon anyways.

Which was why he was sitting in chemistry class now, listening to the instructions from his teacher over the experiment they were conducting. It wasn't really enjoyable, working with someone who hated his guts, but he didn't see any reason to go out of his way to switch partners. It would be a hassle. So he dealt with Jane and her death glares and just focused on his work.

But apparently, he was focusing a little too hard at one point, because the glass test tube Jane was holding over the flames shattered from his telekinesis and the liquid inside caused the flames to shoot up, lighting her hair on fire.

"Oh my god, what happened, my hair, my hair, someone get something for my hair," She screeched in a voice that could only be described as shrill. But before anyone could grab anything, the smoke reached the smoke detector, causing the fire alarm and sprinklers to go off, soaking everyone.

Jane wasn't hurt, luckily, but about half of her hair was burnt off now, and she'd probably have to cut the rest off to match. Gabriel was trying his best not to laugh as the teacher ushured them outside for regular fire procedures.

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[electrocutesy.livejournal.com]

It was deafening, the silence that followed. She couldn't feel her heart beating, the tips of her fingers. It was all... nothing. She felt... nothing.

Her eyes lifted, her vision unfocused, and it took her a moment to see him, to focus on him, living and breathing in front of her.

She promised, and that was her only thought as she lifted her hand, her fingers shaking as they brushed his damp sweater. Her heart fluttered and she gasped a little, her palm flattening on his chest.

Her eyes rose further; found his, his dark orbs framed by thick lashes. She was scared.

[justgabriel.livejournal.com]

His heart thumped against his chest wildly, and he wondered whether she'd go through with it or not. They had promised one another, after all. He'd almost be disappointed if she didn't live up to it.

Maybe it was inevitable that eventually, one of them would have to make good on the promise. He was about to tell her to do it, to just kill him when a voice spoke behind them.

"Mrs. Springhorn told me I would find you two here."

It was the principal.

[electrocutesy.livejournal.com]

There was relief. Just a cool tumble of relief rolling over every inch of her broken body. And pain, regret. A flare of unmistakable anger. She let her hand fall to her side, her eyes to find Principal Levithan's beady ones boring holes into hers. She blinked and shifted.

She wanted to collapse, to cry. To die. To do anything but play pretend, for once in her life.

But Elle knew that was all the more reason to do it.

"I bet you're real mad at us," she chirped, bowing her head to the side with a shamed smile.

[justgabriel.livejournal.com]

"You two have broken alot of rules today," their principal said in a solemn voice. He gave them both pointed looks before continuing. "Gabriel, we've contacted your mother and she's on her way to pick you up. You will be suspended for the next three days." He then turned to look to Elle. "You will be receiving the same punishment, although we could not get ahold of your father at the moment."

Gabriel just nodded numbly. He was almost disappointed she hadn't had the chance to go through with it. What did that say about him?

[electrocutesy.livejournal.com]

"My chauffeur can pick me up. My Daddy works on Wall Street," she spouted off with a thin, apologetic smile, as if that explained everything. "We're really sorry about this, and it won't happen again," she said, her face twisted with mock embarrassment and guilt, and a thin crack fissured through her perfectly appropriate facade.

Of course it wouldn't happen again. Gabriel would never touch her again. Kiss her. Hold her. Make love to her. Each realization was worse than the last, twisting her all up inside until she was sure there was nothing inside of her that worked quite right.

Maybe after she killed him, she thought with painful finality, she'd kill herself.

[justgabriel.livejournal.com]

It won't happen again

Her words echoed in Gabriel's ears and he wondered if she was talking to the principal or him. Probably both. He would never hold her in his arms again, kiss her, make love to her until he wasn't sure where she stopped and he began. She had almost become the other half of him, and now that that was ripped away from him, he felt incomplete.

But what could he do? He couldn't just...kill his mother. He couldn't.

What could he do?

He finally gathered the will to speak again. "We're very sorry sir."

The principal nodded. "Come with me then, you two can wait in my office, where we can make sure you don't get up to anything else."

[electrocutesy.livejournal.com]

Elle wordlessly followed, her eyes suddenly burning. Her limbs ached and the strange, scary emptiness in the pit of her stomach started to spread.

Did he know? Could he feel it, too? Her fingers curled into fists, and she resisted to urge to cross her arms over the gaping wound in her chest. This was just his fault, wasn't it? He left her, and she wasn't quite sure if she believed it yet.

If he left her because of this, that meant Virginia was more important to him, right? All the stupid promises and declarations of love were lies. She should have seen this sooner, she realized. Should have expected it. How stupid she was, for believing someone could love her like that.

Her steps were calculated, slow as they walked slowly down the long hallway. She felt her heart harden, and that flare of anger simmered in her chest as she lifted her eyes to stare sidelong at him. He was just a liar.

[justgabriel.livejournal.com]

He numbly followed the principle back into the building, occasionally glancing back to Elle. His heart twisting in pain each time.

He never thought it would come to this, that he would have to make this sort of choice. It wasn't fair. He hadn't wanted to chose to leave her, but what else could he do? He didn't want his mother to die. No matter what he chose, he was screwed now.

[electrocutesy.livejournal.com]

They turned into the office, but Elle neither noticed nor cared. She simply sat down in one of the big, cushioned chairs in front of the principal's desk. It was strange, how emptiness could hurt, could ache. How being numb was a suffocating pain all its own. The principal was sitting now too, but Elle didn't really hear him when he opened his mouth to speak. To ask stupid questions about their behavior, if they thought it was appropriate, if they realized the suspension was only a light punishment considering their recent behavior--constantly cutting classes, being caught together in the girl's bathroom, and in Elle's case, failing.

All Elle understood was the anger eating her heart up like acid, steadily burning every soft touch and kiss and look away. None of them mattered anymore, and neither did he. So why did it hurt so much?

She never expected this, when she made that promise. She never expected not wanting to kill him even as she hated him for not loving her enough. Her mind was spinning, and she didn't know how many times the principal had to repeat a question to her before she heard it.

"Miss Bishop, for the last time," he said gruffly. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Elle blinked, her vision focusing. She could just kill him. Make him shut up, leave her alone. She was leaving anyway. Or dying, maybe. What was the difference after Gabriel wasn't breathing anymore, anyway?

"Miss Bishop?" he repeated.

[justgabriel.livejournal.com]

Gabriel wasn't doing much better either. His focus, which was nornally sharp to a fault, was everywhere and nowhere at once. His stomach churned. He wanted to tell Elle he made a mistake, that he wasn't leaving her, but he had already broken their promise. Would she really want him back after that?

Somehow, he doubted it.

He didn't hear as the Principal telling him that he was concerned about his recent behavior. But his eyes lit up as the conversation turned on how Elle was a bad influence on what used to be such a promising young student.

"She's not a bad influence," Gabriel insisted, his voice firm. And it was true, he had felt more alive with Elle then he ever had. If that wasn't a good influence, he didn't know what was. His stomach churned and his mouth dried at the thought that it was going to be all over soon.

He really wished she would just get it over with and kill him already.

[electrocutesy.livejournal.com]

He was standing up for her. That was nice, she thought, and if thoughts could be whispers, this one was. It didn't matter. It used to matter, she supposed. Despite not caring what the principal thought--or even if he was alive, Gabriel had always been on her side. For the most part. That had always been comforting, having someone believe in her. Care for her.

Elle lifted her hand, not even tearing her eyes away from the spot on the desk in front of her. So she didn't know how the principal reacted when a crackling, violent stream of electricity flowed from the center of her palm and into his face.

For once, there wasn't joy as the blue arcs viciously consumed the man, and he fell off his chair to the side with a thud, the smell of burnt flesh filling her lungs. Maybe if she was feeling like herself, she would have been disappointed he didn't even scream.

Instead she simply stood on swaying legs, her hand gripping the arm of her chair in a death grip. Her blank eyes flitted over Gabriel's sitting form--his hands that had touched her, his body, up his neck still wounded with her marks, and to those eyes that had scared her so much before.

Elle walked forward and collapsed in his lap, her thighs straddling his, her hands settling on the center of his chest. He felt warm, familiar and not at all. Her heart clenched, and she pressed her palms deeper into him, shaking.

"He was annoying me," she explained softly.

[justgabriel.livejournal.com]

A shiver ran down his shine in either anticipation or fear as she pressed her hands against his chest. Or maybe both. It was hard to tell. Was she clombing in his lap for comfort or to kill him? He tried to read her eyes, but he couldn't get anything from them. That alone was more than a little alarming.

He was about to give his response to her when he heard the shrill sound of his mother's voice.

"Get off of my Gabriel this instance."

And in that moment, he knew what he had to do. He wasn't his mother's anymore. He was Elle's. And there was only one way to prove it. He brought a hand up, and began choking her with his telekensis. "I belong to someone else now, Mother."

Her screams and gasps should have horrified him, but they didn't. It was strange how her death didn't seem nearly as important as he expected it to be.

[electrocutesy.livejournal.com]

One moment her mind was a scary, blank slate, and Gabriel's chest was so solid and fragile beneath her palms, his eyes searching hers. She at least owed herself this, she had decided somehow, someway--quietly, and without conscious approval. She knew the moment Gabriel raised a hand to his mother that she would have killed them both--killed Gabriel, and that terrified her more than anything. Not that she would, but the horror of what would come after.

That was why she didn't quite process what was happening, hear and soak in the words that had been exchanged until Virginia choked one last time for air that wouldn't come, and then fell, released to the floor.

She hesitated, shocked and still half in the resolute trance she'd put herself in. That numb cloud that had been suffocating her so she could find it in her broken heart to kill him, even as it still loved him.

"Gabriel...?" she whispered, and her hands slid up to hold his strong jaw.

[justgabriel.livejournal.com]

Gabriel was still in shock at his own action, and her soft hands were a welcome comfort from the gnawing, twisting guilt that was churning inside of his stomach. He closed his eyes, loosing himself in her touch for a moment. When he finally spoke his voice was shaky and unsure. So much had happened so fast, and his head was still reeling from it.

"I'm yours," came the simple repky, finally. "Not hers or anybody else's, just yours."

[electrocutesy.livejournal.com]

His words draped over her, fell through the fading barrier she'd erected. Her lips parted and with it came a trembling inhale--Elle hadn't even noticed when she had ceased breath. For a moment she couldn't identify the feelings stirring in her, and then they seized her hard.

Happiness. Relief.

Without another thought or suspended second she leaned in to press her lips to his, and then they roaming feverishly, over his jaw, his chin, his cheeks, his neck.

He was hers still. All hers, for real now.

[justgabriel.livejournal.com]

Gabriel just sat there, numbly, as she kissed his skin over and over again, holding onto her as if his life depended on it. For all his protesting earlier, when push came to shove, it had been surprisngly easy to kiss his mother. What did that say about him?

Killing Brian had shook him up enough, but this was even worse. It was his mother, but the idea of being without Elle was much, much worse.

[electrocutesy.livejournal.com]

She felt his stiffness, even as his arms held her so close, so tight she could hardly move. Breathlessly, she pulled back, their foreheads pressed, to look into his eyes. The blankness there, the shock, cut through her, and Elle shifted, coming up on her knees and threading her fingers through the drying silk of his hair. She tilted his head back over the chair, sobered now, and painfully humbled as she gazed down on him.

Everything outside of them felt so surreal--the dead bodies, the school, everything. And strangely enough, even with Virginia dead, she still felt the tingling of electricity on her fingertips. "Why did you say you were leaving me?" she whispered, trying to assess his motives.

He didn't have to leave her--he just didn't, not in Elle's mind. He shouldn't even be able to, and yet he did, for however short a time. She would have rather he tried to kill her then leave her--to just drop her like nothing, like she meant nothing?

[justgabriel.livejournal.com]

He barely even heard his question. It was hard to focus on words, on sounds, on anything but the pounding of his own heart at the moment. What had just happened was barely processing, and he didn't have any idea how to deal with any of it.

As she spoke he wondered idly if she would kill him anyways. He almost hoped he would, after what he had done.

He sat there silently for a few moments, staring at her, before he finally found the words to speak once more. "I was scared," He whispered back softly, gripping onto her tightly still. He couldn't let go. Not just yet.

[electrocutesy.livejournal.com]

Her fingers curled, gripping locks of his hair hard. "Of what?" she asked calmly. What had he been scared of? Killing his mother? It certainly hadn't been of losing her.

She couldn't stop it--the happiness she felt was tainted, and she couldn't relax until he said something--did something--proved something. She didn't care if it was a lot to ask for, if it was selfish. He'd said those words and he couldn't take them back so easily. What kind of person would it make her if she just let him with open arms?

[justgabriel.livejournal.com]

He winced, slightly, at the tight grip on her hair. His focus was still everywhere, and it was hard to even continuing having a conversation. His head felt like cotton. "I didn't want to kill her," He admitted softly. "I didn't want to think I would do something like that just to keep you around. But I was wrong."

If she was going to kill him, she might as well get it over with. And if she didn't do it, he just might kill himself.

[electrocutesy.livejournal.com]

Her eyes stung a little with hurt, confused tears, and her glassy, blurred vision dropped to his mouth. That hurt, a little. She loosened one hand, her fingers sliding down to caress his lips. "Why wouldn't you want to do anything for me?" she murmured in a small, sad voice. Maybe she was asking so many questions because she didn't want to kill him. She was waiting for the right answer, fishing for it, even though Elle knew past her own distress he must be hardly capable of anything right now.

She would know, after all.

[justgabriel.livejournal.com]

"I never thought I would do something like that for anyone, not just you," He whispered, trying to focus on her words, on anything but his mother's dead, lifeless corpse. She looked so fragile there on the floor, that last horrified expression burnt there for all time.

[electrocutesy.livejournal.com]

Elle's heart clenched, his eyes frozen on his mother's body. Her teeth gritted and she grasped his jaw, tugged him back to face her. "Look at me," she demanded. She couldn't deny it hurt, seeing him still so concerned with Virginia... so hurt. She couldn't stop a small part of her from hurting for him, either, and the acidic, foul emotions swirled in her, making her feel sick. "Like what?" she whispered to him, falling into his dark eyes. "I did it for you, too. Don't you see, Gabriel? It's better this way. There's no one else but us now. You didn't do anything wrong. We'll miss them, but we don't need them anymore."

[justgabriel.livejournal.com]

His eyes fell on her, glad to have something else to focus on, to look at, even though he could still see his mother's body without looking at it. "I know...but.." He couldn't explain it, the way he felt like he had just completely condemned himself. Elle was used to killing people, maybe that made it easier for her to justify it to herself. But this was all still new to him.

[electrocutesy.livejournal.com]

"But what?" she asked softly, and gently stroked his cheek with the backs of her fingers. She still felt it, that humming electricity. She didn't want to kill him, and she tried to smile reassuringly down at his lost, troubled look. He looked so vulnerable, so confused. "Talk to me. Let me help you."