(no subject)
first love (or: ew, you have cooties) - sequel
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Gabriel/Elle
Rating: PG.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
Summary: Sequel to gabriel the goober. THE ONE WTIH PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES. And lions. And a tree house.
Dedication: FOR EVERYONE IN THIS LOVELY COMMUNITY.
Author’s Note: This isn't beta-ed. Any mistakes are mine~
Elle doesn’t know why her Daddy had to go to this stupid parent-teaching counseling session. She, for one, told him it was stupid and she was sorry, but he just scolded her for being such a bad girl. Miss O’Connell called him specifically to make sure he was coming.
But Elle likes Miss O’Connell, anyway. She’s smart and sweet and understanding. After that first day on the playground, she took Elle aside from the mean principal who shouted at her and told her that those boys were mean bullies, but they didn’t deserve to be hurt. Elle still disagreed, but at least Miss O’Connell hadn’t screamed in her face about being a violent troublemaker. The boys were the ones making trouble for poor Gabriel! What jerks.
Their names, she’d unfortunately learned over the past few months, were Jason and Kevin, and they were meaner than she first expected. Despite how badly she’d kicked their butts, they still teased Gabriel, and now they teased her, too. Whenever Miss O’Connell wasn’t looking, they blew spitballs at the back of her head, or hid her books and ripped up her papers, and sometimes they even put yucky things like dead bugs in her desk. And the spitballs ruined her silky hair. The first time, she sat so still at her desk and tried not to cry like a big dumb girl, but the minute Gabriel and her were alone during recess, she couldn’t help but let the tears fall. Gabriel had sat with her under the big tree and pulled out all the wet icky pieces for her while she sniffled. He told her she was pretty, and even though she would never tell anyone ever, it made her feel like butterflies were fighting inside her tummy. Now he always takes them out for her, and sometimes Elle is pretty sure he keeps touching her hair sometimes, even when they’re all gone.
Gabriel’s the only nice thing about her new school, except that this school has awesome swings, even though she hardly gets a chance at them since all the popular girls hog them. That brunette girl with the butterfly clips is one of the popular girls, and Elle is so glad she decided to save Gabriel instead of talk to her, because she’s a bitch. Elle knows that’s a bad word to use, but it’s the worse one she knows, and Mary-Ann deserves to be called the worst word in the world. Mary-Ann’s boyfriend is Jason, and Elle broke his nose with Gabriel’s book that first day, so now Mary-Ann hates her. She always cuts her on the lunch line and during gym, Mary-Ann makes sure Elle is picked last every time. Once, Mary-Ann even poured her whole carton of milk on Elle in the cafeteria. She’s a bitch.
Of course, Elle also re-broke Jason’s nose twice, and cut off one of Mary-Ann’s pigtails during arts and crafts, so everyone thinks she’s the one with the “behavior problem.”
Stupid.
Elle’s waiting outside of her classroom, kicking her feet and being bored while her Daddy’s talking to Miss O’Connell, and she’s thinking about all of this and how dumb it is. Now Daddy’s going to be mad at her, and she won’t be able to go outside for weeks. He might even cancel the play dates she has with Gabriel sometimes, and even though Gabriel’s mom, Mrs. Gray, is an annoying jerkface, and never leaves them alone for a second, she still wants to go over Gabriel’s apartment to see him. They play video games and read books, and Gabriel even plays hand games with her sometimes, if she asks real nicely. She likes touching his hands.
Anyway, she’s five seconds from jumping down from her seat and going off to wander when Gabriel and Mrs. Gray (although secretly Elle calls her Boogey Face, because she’s ugly) turn the corner. Gabriel’s face lights up when he sees her, and she jumps down from her seat excitedly to run down the hall, her shoes clapping against the ground.
“Don’t run!” Boogey Face scolds her, but Elle ignores her. She’s not her mother.
Gabriel tugs his hand out of Boogey Face’s grasp, heedless of her sharp, concerned look, and hugs Elle when she flies into his arms. “I was so bored!” she exclaims. “Daddy’s been in there forever!”
“That’s enough, Gabriel,” his mom snaps. “Let go of her.”
Elle pouts and thinks about zapping her, but Daddy told her she wasn’t allowed to do that to anyone, or show anyone, ever ever ever, not even Gabriel. Boogey Face always gets weird when Gabriel hugs her, or they hold hands, and Elle doesn’t understand what the big deal is. Once, they decided to play doctor in his room, and Boogey Face had called her a devil child! They hadn’t even been doing anything wrong, just tickling each other! Grown-ups are so weird.
Gabriel pries her arms from around his neck, and Elle wraps her fingers tight around one of his palms instead, tugging him down the hall. “Come on, let’s go see if we can hear what they’re saying about me!”
“Gabriel!” Boogey screeches, but they are already at the door, pressing their ears against the wood. Gabriel’s smiling a dorky smile, and his face is so close Elle can tell he just had a peanut butter sandwich. She puts her hand over his and tries to listen real hard. “Gabriel,” comes a hissing voice, and then Boogey tears them both away, and her bony fingers hurt, and Elle tries ineffectually to lurch out of her grip.
“Ow, lemme go!” she yells.
“Bad children!” she says fanatically, and releases them to knock on the door. “Your father and I are here to discuss the horrible things you two have been responsible for this year,” she rants. Elle rubs the bruise on her arm and shoots Gabriel a look. He just frowns patiently. “My Gabriel has never been a troublemaker, ever. Not since you.”
“Mom-!” Gabriel cuts in, but the door opens then, and Miss O’Connell ushers Mrs. Gray in, sending Gabriel and Elle a small smile. “Stay put and behave,” she tells them sweetly, and then they’re alone in the hall.
“I hate your mom,” Elle spits, dropping down to the ground with a huff.
“Hey, she’s my mom!” Gabriel shoots back, his brows furrowing, and Elle just rolls her eyes.
“She hated me first!” she argues. “She’s so mean to me!”
“She’s still my mom!” he says back, fiercely, but Elle knows that’s just another way of saying she’s right and he doesn’t want to admit it. Even though Gabriel is her friend, he’s also really really stubborn.
“Whatever, I hate her!” she shouts back, scrambling up to her feet. She turns on her heels and starts running, her little white dress flapping, and she giggles at the feel of its soft fabric on her legs.
“Miss O’Connell said to stay!” Gabriel hisses, but he’s running after her down the stairs, and then Elle’s bursting through the doors and laughing, laughing, laughing all the way across the field before Gabriel finally tackles her. They hit the soft ground under the trees, and she’ll probably have grass stains, but Gabriel’s glasses are all askew. He looks so funny, so she keeps laughing instead of worrying.
“Elle, you have to stop being so dumb sometimes,” he says angrily, rolling off her, his stubby fingers fixing his frames. “Now we’re going to get in trouble.”
“We’re already in trouble, silly,” she tells him, and sits up, grinning and holding her nails out like an angry kitten’s. “Let’s play lions!”
“I don’t want to play lions, Elle,” he says in that stuffy voice she hates, the one he gets when he’s in a stupid bad mood because he’s a yucky boy.
“Rawr!” she growls anyway, and pounces on him, sitting on his chest. He’s pushed back with an “oompf!” and then he looks up at her with a sour puss as she sits on his chest. “I’m Elle, the prettiest, most awesome, coolest, strongest girl lion in the jungle,” she preens.
“That makes you a lioness,” he corrects her, the big grump.
“Whatever. What are you doing on my land, boy lion?”
“That would just make me a lion, Elle,” he says impatiently.
“Stop it! Play along!”
“I don’t want to play along!”
“Stop being a boy!”
“Stop being a girl!”
“You’re no fun, ever! All you ever want to do is be boring!”
“I do not!”
“Do too!”
“Get off of me!”
“No!” she shouts, and pushes down on his shoulders. “You’re my lion prisoner!”
“I’m not playing lions!” he shouts right back, struggling against her, and Elle yelps when he grabs the fabric over her waist and wrestles her onto her back, straddling her stomach and holding too tight onto her hands.
“You’re hurting me!” she whines.
“Now you know how it feels!”
“Stop being mean!” she says, her voice thick with stupid tears, and that’s when Gabriel lets her go, his face morphing between anger and guilt. She sniffles and punches his arm, and he slumps off of her. “Jerk,” she says, turning away and crossing her arms.
She hates when he’s mean, and that had really hurt. Sometimes Gabriel is really strong and he doesn’t even know it. She wipes at her falling tears, and shrugs her shoulders when one of his hands rested on it.
“I’m sorry, Ellie,” he whispers, and places his hand back down. He always uses her silly nickname when he’s trying to make her feel better.
“Sorry for what?” she grumbles, being difficult, and lurches away from him.
“For being mean,” he says on an anxious sigh.
She presses her lips together and tries to stay mad, but she ends up twisting around to throw her arms around him with a quick “me too” instead. His hands flatten on her back, and she smiles when he puts his nose in her hair. He totally loves her hair; he can’t even hide it. “Wanna play lions now?” she asks in a hopeful, innocent voice, and Gabriel sighs dramatically.
“I have a better idea,” he says importantly, and Elle pulls away to roll her eyes at him. He always always always has a ‘better idea’ because he thinks he’s so great.
“What’s your better idea?” she asks with a grumpy pout, but Gabriel just ignores her attitude and gets up, dragging her with him.
“Let’s go to the old tree house,” he says, grinning with all his teeth.
There’s something about the gleam in his eyes that softens her, even though she really wants to play lions. What’s in the stupid old tree house anyway? Just icky bugs and dust that’ll tickle her nose.
“Can we play lions there?” she asks very nicely, weaving her fingers together pleadingly and pouting up at him with her best set of puppy dog eyes.
“Maybe,” he concedes, and takes her hand, tugging her along. Elle lets him, because she knows no matter what she’ll get her way. Elle’s good at getting her way, and Gabriel is just annoying sometimes.
The tree house is at the very far back edge of the school playground, and the wood is all rotten and yucky and the ladder steps are falling or missing all up the trunk. No one’s allowed in it, obviously, because it’s “dangerous,” but sometimes Gabriel and Elle will sneak off during recess to get away from all the stupid people.
Elle doesn’t like the bugs-yucky spiders and disgusting centipedes she stomps on viciously-but Gabriel’s a boy, so he doesn’t care. Once even, they found a dead bird, and he dissected it and let her watch before they buried it. She didn’t really find that yucky, and Gabriel was really good at explaining how everything in the poor thing’s insides worked. She learned a whole lot until he threatened to put his bird guts hands in her pretty hair and chased her all the way back to the playground.
Sometimes Gabriel really is such a dumb boy, even if he helps her up to the rickety wooden house like a gentleman every time, like he is now. He pushes her up by her feet and legs until she can pull herself inside past the last few missing steps. The dirt caked on the floor ruins her pretty dress, but it already has grass stains, so Elle doesn’t care anymore. She takes Gabriel’s outstretched hands and helps pull him up with all the strength in her little frame.
She’s tired when it’s over, because the tree house is up really high, so she lays down on the rotting wood, kicking her little feet off the side while Gabriel walks further into the shadows. “Make sure there’s no spiders,” she demands with a shudder.
“Don’t be a girl,” he tells her, and she just rolls her eyes. Only a dumb boy would say that.
“Can we play lions now?” she asks, gazing up past the cracks in the roof to the layers of green foliage and blue sky. It’s pretty, and the birds chirping remind her of the triangle she played in music class last week.
“We’re in a tree house, Elle. Lions don’t go in tree houses,” he tells her, and Elle sits up with anger scrunching her entire face. Gabriel is standing aways behind her with a smug stupid look and a dumb smile, like he’s so smart.
“You brought me up here just so you could say that!” she accuses, because it’s true.
“You fell for it, like a dumb girl,” he shoots right back.
Her little fists tighten into two little weapons, but Elle simply narrows her eyes at him. “Play lions or I’ll jump and kill myself!”
Gabriel hesitates, and then his face hardens into indignant disbelief. “You’re such a liar!”
“Am not!” she screeches back, and wiggles halfway off the edge. The ground is really far, and maybe she is bluffing, and maybe she doesn’t even want to play lions anymore, but now this is just about the principle of the thing. Whatever that means. She hears Daddy say it all the time.
That’s when she feels Gabriel grab below her arms and drag her back even though she instantly struggles, kicking and reaching to scratch and hit him. “Stop!” he exclaims “Stop it!” and trips back onto his butt. Elle spins around to jump on him, giggling madly as her hands find his sides.
Gabriel’s really ticklish, and he immediately curls up tight in a ball like a scared potato bug, yelling through painful laughs. “I got you, I got you!” she sings, and then collapses by his side, hugging him.
He unravels, his hair all messed up, his glasses askew, and his eyes dark. Elle just smiles a closed-mouth smile at his harsh temper, all sweet and innocent and sugar. “You did not,” he growls.
“Did to,” she says, and pets down his unruly hair like he’s a puppy.
“Cut it out,” he hisses and swats her hand away, a sour pout on his lips.
“I won. Just say it,” she preens, squeezing him. He’s like a teddy bear, she thinks. She loves Gabriel a whole lot, even when he’s being a jerkface.
“You didn’t win,” he grumbles.
“Did to,” she counters.
“Did not.”
“Did to.”
“Did not.”
“Say it.”
“Leave me alone.”
“No,” she replies joyously.
Gabriel’s brow is all crinkled down the middle now, and he sighs. “Fine,” he answers.
Her face lights up. “I won?” she exclaims.
“No,” he sneers. “You don’t have to leave me alone.”
She smiles anyway and blushes, and then he blushes, and she can still smell the peanut butter on his breath. Her little heart is beating really fast, and she’s clumsy and hesitant, but she closes the space between them to kiss him right on the lips. It’s fast but electric, and Elle has never ever kissed a boy before, but it felt nice and weird and grown up.
When she pulls back, Gabriel looks all shocked and dazed, his eyes all round and wide. Elle giggles. “What was that for?” he asks, as if she just hit him or something.
“I dunno,” she replies, her lips tingling. Gabriel flushes all red, his shock filtering away. “Oh,” he replies very softly, and darts his eyes away only to return them to her.
She gasps a little when he leans in this time, pressing his mouth to hers, and then he stays there for a second before pulling away. Elle beams, breathing fast, and Gabriel’s smiling really wide now and so is she. “Wanna be my boyfriend?” she blurts out, because they kissed, and that’s what usually happens next in the movies.
“Okay,” he says. Elle’s pretty sure this is the best moment ever. Even later, when Daddy takes away her Barbie Dream House for leaving the building without him, she doesn’t even care.
Fandom: Heroes
Pairing: Gabriel/Elle
Rating: PG.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
Summary: Sequel to gabriel the goober. THE ONE WTIH PARENT-TEACHER CONFERENCES. And lions. And a tree house.
Dedication: FOR EVERYONE IN THIS LOVELY COMMUNITY.
Author’s Note: This isn't beta-ed. Any mistakes are mine~
Elle doesn’t know why her Daddy had to go to this stupid parent-teaching counseling session. She, for one, told him it was stupid and she was sorry, but he just scolded her for being such a bad girl. Miss O’Connell called him specifically to make sure he was coming.
But Elle likes Miss O’Connell, anyway. She’s smart and sweet and understanding. After that first day on the playground, she took Elle aside from the mean principal who shouted at her and told her that those boys were mean bullies, but they didn’t deserve to be hurt. Elle still disagreed, but at least Miss O’Connell hadn’t screamed in her face about being a violent troublemaker. The boys were the ones making trouble for poor Gabriel! What jerks.
Their names, she’d unfortunately learned over the past few months, were Jason and Kevin, and they were meaner than she first expected. Despite how badly she’d kicked their butts, they still teased Gabriel, and now they teased her, too. Whenever Miss O’Connell wasn’t looking, they blew spitballs at the back of her head, or hid her books and ripped up her papers, and sometimes they even put yucky things like dead bugs in her desk. And the spitballs ruined her silky hair. The first time, she sat so still at her desk and tried not to cry like a big dumb girl, but the minute Gabriel and her were alone during recess, she couldn’t help but let the tears fall. Gabriel had sat with her under the big tree and pulled out all the wet icky pieces for her while she sniffled. He told her she was pretty, and even though she would never tell anyone ever, it made her feel like butterflies were fighting inside her tummy. Now he always takes them out for her, and sometimes Elle is pretty sure he keeps touching her hair sometimes, even when they’re all gone.
Gabriel’s the only nice thing about her new school, except that this school has awesome swings, even though she hardly gets a chance at them since all the popular girls hog them. That brunette girl with the butterfly clips is one of the popular girls, and Elle is so glad she decided to save Gabriel instead of talk to her, because she’s a bitch. Elle knows that’s a bad word to use, but it’s the worse one she knows, and Mary-Ann deserves to be called the worst word in the world. Mary-Ann’s boyfriend is Jason, and Elle broke his nose with Gabriel’s book that first day, so now Mary-Ann hates her. She always cuts her on the lunch line and during gym, Mary-Ann makes sure Elle is picked last every time. Once, Mary-Ann even poured her whole carton of milk on Elle in the cafeteria. She’s a bitch.
Of course, Elle also re-broke Jason’s nose twice, and cut off one of Mary-Ann’s pigtails during arts and crafts, so everyone thinks she’s the one with the “behavior problem.”
Stupid.
Elle’s waiting outside of her classroom, kicking her feet and being bored while her Daddy’s talking to Miss O’Connell, and she’s thinking about all of this and how dumb it is. Now Daddy’s going to be mad at her, and she won’t be able to go outside for weeks. He might even cancel the play dates she has with Gabriel sometimes, and even though Gabriel’s mom, Mrs. Gray, is an annoying jerkface, and never leaves them alone for a second, she still wants to go over Gabriel’s apartment to see him. They play video games and read books, and Gabriel even plays hand games with her sometimes, if she asks real nicely. She likes touching his hands.
Anyway, she’s five seconds from jumping down from her seat and going off to wander when Gabriel and Mrs. Gray (although secretly Elle calls her Boogey Face, because she’s ugly) turn the corner. Gabriel’s face lights up when he sees her, and she jumps down from her seat excitedly to run down the hall, her shoes clapping against the ground.
“Don’t run!” Boogey Face scolds her, but Elle ignores her. She’s not her mother.
Gabriel tugs his hand out of Boogey Face’s grasp, heedless of her sharp, concerned look, and hugs Elle when she flies into his arms. “I was so bored!” she exclaims. “Daddy’s been in there forever!”
“That’s enough, Gabriel,” his mom snaps. “Let go of her.”
Elle pouts and thinks about zapping her, but Daddy told her she wasn’t allowed to do that to anyone, or show anyone, ever ever ever, not even Gabriel. Boogey Face always gets weird when Gabriel hugs her, or they hold hands, and Elle doesn’t understand what the big deal is. Once, they decided to play doctor in his room, and Boogey Face had called her a devil child! They hadn’t even been doing anything wrong, just tickling each other! Grown-ups are so weird.
Gabriel pries her arms from around his neck, and Elle wraps her fingers tight around one of his palms instead, tugging him down the hall. “Come on, let’s go see if we can hear what they’re saying about me!”
“Gabriel!” Boogey screeches, but they are already at the door, pressing their ears against the wood. Gabriel’s smiling a dorky smile, and his face is so close Elle can tell he just had a peanut butter sandwich. She puts her hand over his and tries to listen real hard. “Gabriel,” comes a hissing voice, and then Boogey tears them both away, and her bony fingers hurt, and Elle tries ineffectually to lurch out of her grip.
“Ow, lemme go!” she yells.
“Bad children!” she says fanatically, and releases them to knock on the door. “Your father and I are here to discuss the horrible things you two have been responsible for this year,” she rants. Elle rubs the bruise on her arm and shoots Gabriel a look. He just frowns patiently. “My Gabriel has never been a troublemaker, ever. Not since you.”
“Mom-!” Gabriel cuts in, but the door opens then, and Miss O’Connell ushers Mrs. Gray in, sending Gabriel and Elle a small smile. “Stay put and behave,” she tells them sweetly, and then they’re alone in the hall.
“I hate your mom,” Elle spits, dropping down to the ground with a huff.
“Hey, she’s my mom!” Gabriel shoots back, his brows furrowing, and Elle just rolls her eyes.
“She hated me first!” she argues. “She’s so mean to me!”
“She’s still my mom!” he says back, fiercely, but Elle knows that’s just another way of saying she’s right and he doesn’t want to admit it. Even though Gabriel is her friend, he’s also really really stubborn.
“Whatever, I hate her!” she shouts back, scrambling up to her feet. She turns on her heels and starts running, her little white dress flapping, and she giggles at the feel of its soft fabric on her legs.
“Miss O’Connell said to stay!” Gabriel hisses, but he’s running after her down the stairs, and then Elle’s bursting through the doors and laughing, laughing, laughing all the way across the field before Gabriel finally tackles her. They hit the soft ground under the trees, and she’ll probably have grass stains, but Gabriel’s glasses are all askew. He looks so funny, so she keeps laughing instead of worrying.
“Elle, you have to stop being so dumb sometimes,” he says angrily, rolling off her, his stubby fingers fixing his frames. “Now we’re going to get in trouble.”
“We’re already in trouble, silly,” she tells him, and sits up, grinning and holding her nails out like an angry kitten’s. “Let’s play lions!”
“I don’t want to play lions, Elle,” he says in that stuffy voice she hates, the one he gets when he’s in a stupid bad mood because he’s a yucky boy.
“Rawr!” she growls anyway, and pounces on him, sitting on his chest. He’s pushed back with an “oompf!” and then he looks up at her with a sour puss as she sits on his chest. “I’m Elle, the prettiest, most awesome, coolest, strongest girl lion in the jungle,” she preens.
“That makes you a lioness,” he corrects her, the big grump.
“Whatever. What are you doing on my land, boy lion?”
“That would just make me a lion, Elle,” he says impatiently.
“Stop it! Play along!”
“I don’t want to play along!”
“Stop being a boy!”
“Stop being a girl!”
“You’re no fun, ever! All you ever want to do is be boring!”
“I do not!”
“Do too!”
“Get off of me!”
“No!” she shouts, and pushes down on his shoulders. “You’re my lion prisoner!”
“I’m not playing lions!” he shouts right back, struggling against her, and Elle yelps when he grabs the fabric over her waist and wrestles her onto her back, straddling her stomach and holding too tight onto her hands.
“You’re hurting me!” she whines.
“Now you know how it feels!”
“Stop being mean!” she says, her voice thick with stupid tears, and that’s when Gabriel lets her go, his face morphing between anger and guilt. She sniffles and punches his arm, and he slumps off of her. “Jerk,” she says, turning away and crossing her arms.
She hates when he’s mean, and that had really hurt. Sometimes Gabriel is really strong and he doesn’t even know it. She wipes at her falling tears, and shrugs her shoulders when one of his hands rested on it.
“I’m sorry, Ellie,” he whispers, and places his hand back down. He always uses her silly nickname when he’s trying to make her feel better.
“Sorry for what?” she grumbles, being difficult, and lurches away from him.
“For being mean,” he says on an anxious sigh.
She presses her lips together and tries to stay mad, but she ends up twisting around to throw her arms around him with a quick “me too” instead. His hands flatten on her back, and she smiles when he puts his nose in her hair. He totally loves her hair; he can’t even hide it. “Wanna play lions now?” she asks in a hopeful, innocent voice, and Gabriel sighs dramatically.
“I have a better idea,” he says importantly, and Elle pulls away to roll her eyes at him. He always always always has a ‘better idea’ because he thinks he’s so great.
“What’s your better idea?” she asks with a grumpy pout, but Gabriel just ignores her attitude and gets up, dragging her with him.
“Let’s go to the old tree house,” he says, grinning with all his teeth.
There’s something about the gleam in his eyes that softens her, even though she really wants to play lions. What’s in the stupid old tree house anyway? Just icky bugs and dust that’ll tickle her nose.
“Can we play lions there?” she asks very nicely, weaving her fingers together pleadingly and pouting up at him with her best set of puppy dog eyes.
“Maybe,” he concedes, and takes her hand, tugging her along. Elle lets him, because she knows no matter what she’ll get her way. Elle’s good at getting her way, and Gabriel is just annoying sometimes.
The tree house is at the very far back edge of the school playground, and the wood is all rotten and yucky and the ladder steps are falling or missing all up the trunk. No one’s allowed in it, obviously, because it’s “dangerous,” but sometimes Gabriel and Elle will sneak off during recess to get away from all the stupid people.
Elle doesn’t like the bugs-yucky spiders and disgusting centipedes she stomps on viciously-but Gabriel’s a boy, so he doesn’t care. Once even, they found a dead bird, and he dissected it and let her watch before they buried it. She didn’t really find that yucky, and Gabriel was really good at explaining how everything in the poor thing’s insides worked. She learned a whole lot until he threatened to put his bird guts hands in her pretty hair and chased her all the way back to the playground.
Sometimes Gabriel really is such a dumb boy, even if he helps her up to the rickety wooden house like a gentleman every time, like he is now. He pushes her up by her feet and legs until she can pull herself inside past the last few missing steps. The dirt caked on the floor ruins her pretty dress, but it already has grass stains, so Elle doesn’t care anymore. She takes Gabriel’s outstretched hands and helps pull him up with all the strength in her little frame.
She’s tired when it’s over, because the tree house is up really high, so she lays down on the rotting wood, kicking her little feet off the side while Gabriel walks further into the shadows. “Make sure there’s no spiders,” she demands with a shudder.
“Don’t be a girl,” he tells her, and she just rolls her eyes. Only a dumb boy would say that.
“Can we play lions now?” she asks, gazing up past the cracks in the roof to the layers of green foliage and blue sky. It’s pretty, and the birds chirping remind her of the triangle she played in music class last week.
“We’re in a tree house, Elle. Lions don’t go in tree houses,” he tells her, and Elle sits up with anger scrunching her entire face. Gabriel is standing aways behind her with a smug stupid look and a dumb smile, like he’s so smart.
“You brought me up here just so you could say that!” she accuses, because it’s true.
“You fell for it, like a dumb girl,” he shoots right back.
Her little fists tighten into two little weapons, but Elle simply narrows her eyes at him. “Play lions or I’ll jump and kill myself!”
Gabriel hesitates, and then his face hardens into indignant disbelief. “You’re such a liar!”
“Am not!” she screeches back, and wiggles halfway off the edge. The ground is really far, and maybe she is bluffing, and maybe she doesn’t even want to play lions anymore, but now this is just about the principle of the thing. Whatever that means. She hears Daddy say it all the time.
That’s when she feels Gabriel grab below her arms and drag her back even though she instantly struggles, kicking and reaching to scratch and hit him. “Stop!” he exclaims “Stop it!” and trips back onto his butt. Elle spins around to jump on him, giggling madly as her hands find his sides.
Gabriel’s really ticklish, and he immediately curls up tight in a ball like a scared potato bug, yelling through painful laughs. “I got you, I got you!” she sings, and then collapses by his side, hugging him.
He unravels, his hair all messed up, his glasses askew, and his eyes dark. Elle just smiles a closed-mouth smile at his harsh temper, all sweet and innocent and sugar. “You did not,” he growls.
“Did to,” she says, and pets down his unruly hair like he’s a puppy.
“Cut it out,” he hisses and swats her hand away, a sour pout on his lips.
“I won. Just say it,” she preens, squeezing him. He’s like a teddy bear, she thinks. She loves Gabriel a whole lot, even when he’s being a jerkface.
“You didn’t win,” he grumbles.
“Did to,” she counters.
“Did not.”
“Did to.”
“Did not.”
“Say it.”
“Leave me alone.”
“No,” she replies joyously.
Gabriel’s brow is all crinkled down the middle now, and he sighs. “Fine,” he answers.
Her face lights up. “I won?” she exclaims.
“No,” he sneers. “You don’t have to leave me alone.”
She smiles anyway and blushes, and then he blushes, and she can still smell the peanut butter on his breath. Her little heart is beating really fast, and she’s clumsy and hesitant, but she closes the space between them to kiss him right on the lips. It’s fast but electric, and Elle has never ever kissed a boy before, but it felt nice and weird and grown up.
When she pulls back, Gabriel looks all shocked and dazed, his eyes all round and wide. Elle giggles. “What was that for?” he asks, as if she just hit him or something.
“I dunno,” she replies, her lips tingling. Gabriel flushes all red, his shock filtering away. “Oh,” he replies very softly, and darts his eyes away only to return them to her.
She gasps a little when he leans in this time, pressing his mouth to hers, and then he stays there for a second before pulling away. Elle beams, breathing fast, and Gabriel’s smiling really wide now and so is she. “Wanna be my boyfriend?” she blurts out, because they kissed, and that’s what usually happens next in the movies.
“Okay,” he says. Elle’s pretty sure this is the best moment ever. Even later, when Daddy takes away her Barbie Dream House for leaving the building without him, she doesn’t even care.