Kindred Spirits

Title: Kindred Spirits

Author: Henrika

Rating: Eventually NC-17

Pairing: Gabriel/Peter

Summary: Peter Petrelli befriends a lonely and depressed Gabriel Gray during their senior year in high school.

Disclaimer: I do not own Heroes or the characters portrayed in this story (with a few exceptions). This is for entertainment purposes only. No rights, no income.

Spoilers: Up until ep 10 “Six Months Ago”. After that, not much.


Chapter 1

Gabriel Gray detested group assignments. Ever since grade school, he had always ended up as the last person elected, be it phys ed, English, biology or any other subject. Or rather he was not elected at all but randomly placed in a group of people their teachers expected him to cooperate with, despite knowing that no other pupil wanted to interact with him except when to make him the butt of their often times cruel and demeaning jokes. They had to know that. Gabriel didn’t think that even teachers were that stupid. Instead of dealing with the problem, such as it was, the adults simply chose to sweep it under the carpet and hope it would stay there. Gabriel had endured – developed special strategies for it, actually – and the knowledge that this was his senior year and thus his last year ever in school was a small but desperate consolation.

The one thing Gabriel hated more than group assignments were pair assignments. Being in a group did not require any active participation from his part, but when put together with only one other person it was unavoidable. So today, when Miss Carlyle announced in biology class that the students would spend the following week working in pairs, he closed his eyes in defeat and felt his stomach knotting up on instinct. Gabriel briefly considered excusing himself and simply leaving the classroom in a desperate attempt to avoid the upcoming ordeal. However, Miss Carlyle would never buy it, not today, and not ever. He had spent too much time home for no “real” reason already. None of his teachers bought “nausea” as an excuse any longer.

Watching as the other students sought each other out, Gabriel awaited the inevitable. Maybe Miss Carlyle would be kind enough to let him work on his own instead of getting him paired up with some jerk. He always chose the spot in the far corner of the classroom. That way he mostly managed just to be ignored instead of made fun at, which was a small victory.

Gabriel opened his biology textbook and pretended to be completely absorbed by the reproductive system of leguminous plants, when he was suddenly approached. Jerking in fright, he gazed up from behind his glasses at the person in question.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” a slightly raspy, soft-spoken voice said. It belonged to a boy with dark eyes, flawless pale skin, and dark hair long enough to cover his right eye almost completely. A boy that in Gabriel’s opinion was the epitome of male beauty. His heart sped up, but from other reasons than before.

“No, that’s alright…” he murmured, giving a shy, hesitant smile.

“You’re Gabriel, right?”

“Yeah…” Gabriel said, still on his guard. He remembered catching glimpses of this boy in class, but he did not know his name or what kind of person he was. Only that he looked damned good.

“I’m Peter,” his new acquaintance introduced himself. “Peter Petrelli. We have English together.”

Gabriel nodded. Peter Petrelli. That was a name he ought to remember from now on.

Peter started drawing circles with his index finger on Gabriel’s desk. More of his bangs fell forth, and he brushed them back with a casual gesture. “So, wanna team up with me?” he asked. “As lab partners, I mean? I’m kinda new here and don’t know many people, and I noticed you were sitting here all by yourself, so I thought…” Peter stopped, having noticed that he was babbling, and waited for an answer. His beautiful brown eyes caught Gabriel’s own.

To his surprise, Gabriel found himself nodding, the earlier ghost of a smile now a broad grin plastered on his face. He did not laugh or even smile often, not only because he rarely had a reason to, but because his peers never failed to point out how ridiculous his smile looked. Now, however, he had a reason. A good one.

“It’s a deal, then,” Peter said with a pleasant grin of his own.

Miss Carlyle raised a questioning eyebrow at them when they approached her for their assignment. She was surprised and didn’t even try to hide it. During her time as a teacher, Gabriel had never managed to find a lab partner on his own. Walking up to the teacher’s desk with Peter made him feel triumphant. A tiny flicker of hope had ignited deep in his core. Could he maybe, for the first time in almost eighteen long years, actually make a friend?

*

The assignment itself could not have been more boring – to choose a species of animals to research about and compile an oral presentation on ethology, the study of animal behaviour. Gabriel was practically walking on clouds as he followed Peter outside through the main exit. School was over for the day after biology class, and everyone was in a hurry to get away. Gabriel’s face had already started to ache from the constant smiling, but it didn’t bother him the slightest. The smile was quickly erased, though, when someone from behind gave him a hard shove, sending him onto all fours on the pavement. His textbooks scattered and pages of hand-written notes flew out from between the pages, flapping in the frisk autumn breeze.

Gabriel looked up and saw the sneering face of Decker, a high school football player and steadfast tormentor of Gabriel’s, hovering over him. “What’s the matter, buck tooth?” Decker spat out. “Got your legs all tangled up again?”

Gabriel did what he always used to do in a situation like this: scan for a potential escape route. He expected Peter to have darted off as soon as the ruckus began; no sane kid would willingly stay by his side when this happened, would they? Therefore he was very surprised, astonished even, when Peter stepped in between him and Decker, saying, “You need to watch where you’re going. And I believe you owe Gabriel an apology.”

Hastily collecting his possessions from the ground, Gabriel stood up and watched Peter with blatant admiration. Decker was five inches taller than the newcomer and outweighed him with at least 70 pounds. Yet Peter stood firm, glaring up at the football player.

To his surprise, Gabriel noticed Decker’s gaze waver. “Mind your own business, Petrelli,” he said in a low growl, doing his best to sound menacing. Peter remained unaffected. A contest of wills played out during the following ten or twelve seconds, and Gabriel’s gaze nervously wandered between the two as he clutched his textbooks firmly. At last Decker took a step back, muttering obscenities to himself, noticeably irate. Then he actually left, but not before sending Gabriel a stare that had a clear message – “You will pay for this, freak.”

“Jesus, what an asshole!” Peter exclaimed, glaring at Decker’s broad, withdrawing form. “Are you okay, Gabriel? Did he hurt you?”

“No, I’m fine… really…” Gabriel murmured, eyes cast down. His cheeks were burning hot, not from Decker’s abuse but Peter’s heroic intervention. No one had ever stood up for him before, and he was deeply moved.

“You sure?” Peter asked with genuine concern. “Let me see your hand.”

Gabriel let the dark-haired boy gently grasp his hand and fold out his fingers. True, he had scraped his palm when Decker shoved him over, but the injury itself was insignificant. So was the slight sting of it. He had been through worse. Gabriel’s breath hitched in his throat when Peter suddenly lifted the hand to his face and blew some warm air on the abrasion. While it felt wonderful, it was the mere gesture, and the individual performing it, that made Gabriel’s knees all weak.

“It feels good, doesn’t it?” Peter said with a sympathetic smile. “My mom’s always said I have so-called “nurturing qualities”. If I see someone hurt, I just can’t help myself.”

“You didn’t have to do that…” Gabriel whispered.

“Oh, it was nothing, I…”

“I mean… earlier. With Decker. You didn’t have to get inv”---

“Oh, come on! Of course I did. I hate guys like him, thinking they can get away with anything just because they’re good at throwing a stupid ball. Has he bothered you before?”

“I’ve lost count…” Gabriel muttered.

“If he does again, let me know, and I’ll deal with him,” Peter said, voice strong with determination. It was actually easy to notice that he was serious. “Let’s forget him now, though. We gotta start working on this biology thing.”

Gabriel nodded slowly. “So, should we head to the school library…?”

“Nah, let’s head home to my place,” Peter replied. “We can search the Internet, it’s much quicker than books. Is that okay with you?”

Gabriel refused to believe this was happening. They had only met half an hour ago, and Peter was already inviting him over? It’s for a school assignment, he reminded himself. Don’t get carried away. Just an assignment…

“Is that okay, Gabriel?” Peter repeated his question. “Or would you rather we head home to you?”

“I… I don’t have a computer…” Gabriel admitted, feeling embarrassed. A PC was pretty much standard inventory in every teenager’s room nowadays. Unfortunately, his parents could not afford buying him one. The money from his father’s watch repair shop was scarcely enough to bring food to the family’s dinner table. Computers were a luxury a simple watchmaker’s son had to do without. “I’ll be happy to follow you home,” he added, not wanting Peter to ask a third time. “But I have to call my mom and let her know. She’ll go ballistic if I don’t come straight home from school.”

“Sure, you can call her when we get there,” Peter said light-heartedly. “Do you have a car, or are you riding with me?”

Gabriel shook his head. “No, no car…” In his mind he added that how could he possibly afford a car when even a computer was out of his league. He did not even have a licence.

“Okay, come on.” Peter grabbed him by the elbow and started dragging him toward the student parking lot. Gabriel did not even dare guess which car belonged to Peter, but he never would have guessed that it was the silver Porsche they ended up approaching. He did not know a whole lot about cars, but he was well aware that this particular type was reserved for rich people.

Failing his hide his surprise, Gabriel asked, “This is yours?”

“Yeah, I got it for my seventeenth birthday,” Peter informed him. “Dad said that with a car of my own, I’ll be forced to take some more responsibility. Come on, get in.”

The seats were made of shining black leather, and Gabriel had a feeling he would taint them with his mere presence. Looking down at his simple home-made clothes, he once again wished that his family had some more money. With a tight hold on his backpack, he hesitantly seated himself as Peter got in the driver’s seat.

The drive to Peter’s home lasted approximately ten minutes. All doubts that his new acquaintance (friend?) was rich were erased when Gabriel saw where he lived. One look at the Petrelli mansion was enough to determine that Peter came from one of New York’s prominent families. Suddenly feeling very awkward about his own background and appearance, Gabriel hesitated outside the gates.

“I look like something the cat dragged in…” he said, not realizing he had spoken the words out loud until Peter answered him.

“Nonsense, you look great! Besides, I don’t think it matters what you’re wearing. You’re not exactly going to have dinner with the President.”

“I know, but…”

“Then come on!” Grabbing his elbow once more, Peter pulled him toward the front door. It was locked, and Peter let out a small stream of curses before finding his key somewhere on the bottom of his shoulder bag.

The hallway alone was the size of the apartment Gabriel’s family lived in. He had a feeling that if he yelled in here, the echoing would never cease.

Peter dropped his bag and hung his black denim jacket on a coat rack. “Mom? Dad?” he called but received no answer. “They’re still at work, I guess,” Peter said casually and took Gabriel’s jacket, draping it over his own. “That means it’s just the two of us. You can relax.”

Gabriel felt his face heat up again. Was it really that obvious how he felt? Apparently it was, or Peter was just keen on reading other people’s moods. Gabriel himself thought that he had learned to control his emotions fairly well during his torturous seventeen years and nine months of walking the earth. Being the perpetual target of bullies, he had had no other choice.

“My room’s upstairs, third door to the right,” Peter told him. “Can I get you anything? A sandwich? Milk? Soda…?”

“No… thanks, I’m fine. I’d like to call my mom, though. She’s probably worried already.”

“Yeah, right… Sorry I forgot about that.” Peter handed him a cordless phone. “Take your time, and come upstairs when you’re done. I’ll start searching the ‘net.”

Gabriel dialled the number to his home, and after two rings his mother answered in her typical manner. “The Gray residence.”

“Hi mom, it’s me.”

“Gabriel?” The tone of her voice immediately went from neutral to anxious. “Honey, where are you?”

“I’m studying with a classmate, mom. We’re at his place now.”

He could practically see her shocked visage before him. Not that he didn’t understand how she must feel. This was the first time ever he had accompanied anyone from school home. After a long moment of silence, his mother spoke again. “You’re not in trouble, are you, Gabriel?”

“No, mom, I assure you, I’m fine. This boy’s name is Peter Petrelli. We’re lab partners in biology class. He’s really nice, I promise.”

Though still mildly suspicious, Virginia Gray exhaled a sigh of relief. “How will you get home?” she asked.

Gabriel did not know how to answer that question. Truth was he hadn’t given it much thought. Asking Peter to drive him home was out of question; he didn’t want to scare off his potential new friend by making such requests on their first day hanging out. It would only make him appear too needy, and he definitely wanted to avoid that. Besides, he was almost eighteen; he should be able to get home on his own.

“I’ll take the subway, mom,” he finally said. “It’ll be fine.”

“The subway?” Now Virginia sounded anxious again. “Gabriel, don’t you know how dangerous it is to be wandering out there”---

“Mom! I’m not seven years old anymore! You’re gonna have to trust me. I’ll be home by eight. I promise. Now Peter and I have got to get started on this assignment. Bye, mom. I love you.”

Gabriel braced himself for another admonishing lecture on the dangers of going home with strangers, but his mother was silent on the other side of the line.

“Goodbye, Gabriel. May the Lord watch over you,” she simply said and then there was just the dial tone. Gabriel sighed, lowering the receiver from his ear. He loved his mother, but sometimes – or most of the time, actually – her over-protectiveness and heavily religious sentiment got on his nerves. He knew that much of it was due to past experiences – she only had one son, and many times said son had come home bruised and bloody with his clothes torn, once with a missing tooth. Virginia had her reasons to worry, but there were times when he really felt that she was smothering him.

“Hey, Gabriel!” Peter calling from upstairs interrupted his musings. “Come upstairs, I wanna show you my room!”

The door to Peter’s room was ajar, and Gabriel slowly pushed it open. He was relieved to discover that Peter’s personal space looked like a normal teenage boy’s hideout. The walls were covered with various posters, clothes lay scattered here and there, the desk was overflowing with books and CDs stapled on one another, forming practically a wall around the centre, where his PC was located. Peter had already opened a web browser and was randomly skimming through the Google search results for “animal behaviour”.

Gabriel sat on the edge of the bed, because there didn’t appear to be any places to sit other than Peter’s computer chair, which was occupied already.

“So, what did your parents say? They let you stay here?” Peter asked without taking his eyes off the screen.

“Yeah… Mom always worries about me. I guess it’s because I’m an only child. Do you have any siblings, Peter?”

“Yeah, I’ve got one older brother… Nathan,” Peter replied. “He’s a lawyer, like my dad.”

“Do you want to become a lawyer, too?” Gabriel asked.

Peter grimaced as though Gabriel had proposed he eat a cockroach. “Hell no! I don’t know what I wanna become, but a lawyer’s definitely out of question.”

“Peter, you’re rich. When you’re grown up, you can do whatever you want.”

Peter scoffed. “Yeah, you’re probably wondering what I’m doing at a municipal school, right?”

“No, I didn’t mean to imply”---

“No, no, it’s alright. A lot of “regular” kids are put off by all of… this.” He gestured at nothing in particular. Gabriel had a feeling that he wasn’t referring to his own bedroom. “I actually went to a private school before, but I kind of flunked out of it… so that’s why I transferred to yours. I’m kinda glad I did. Being surrounded by uptight snobs 24/7 is not healthy, believe me.”

They looked at each other and started to laugh. Gabriel knew in that very moment that he definitely liked Peter Petrelli. Perhaps even more than what was appropriate, and definitely more than Peter would ever like him. What mattered most, however, was that he, Gabriel Gray, had finally managed to find a friend.

*

They did not get much work done on the assignment, but neither was particularly concerned about that. Instead they had spent the time talking, and while their lives and opinions different in many regards, both were surprised at how much they had in common. The numerous posters in Peter’s room, many featuring motifs from horror movies, were hard to go by unnoticed. The most impressive one hung on the wall above the bed and represented Gary Oldman and Winona Ryder from Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

Gabriel was also a fan of horror movies, although he had to keep it a secret from his parents, who still adamantly refused to let him watch any. Needless to say, the walls of his room were not covered by posters.

“So what’s your favourite scary movie, Gabriel?” Peter asked as they lay sprawled on the bed alongside each other.

“’Carrie’”, Gabriel replied.

Peter unexpectedly burst out laughing, and Gabriel flinched on reflex, having been the laughing stock of others for ages.

“Carrie? That one’s practically a fossil!”

“Yeah, maybe, but I like it,” Gabriel said with a shrug. “It has substance. I can really sympathise with the main character. They were awful to her, and she wanted revenge. It’s only natural.”

“Yeah, by becoming a mass murderer!” Peter countered, still chuckling. “A monster.”

“Maybe, but a monster you could feel for. She was special. None of it was her fault, they made her like that.”

Now it was Peter’s time to shrug. He had another argument on his tongue, but he was sensitive enough to realize how this topic of conversation affected Gabriel. His new friend did not need to advertise his loneliness to make it obvious. Carrie White, fictional though she was, could very well be someone Gabriel identified with.

Gabriel suddenly bolted up as if electrocuted, his previously relaxed face a mask of shock. “Oh God, what time is it?”

Peter cast a quick glance at the digital alarm clock on his bedside table. “Thirteen to eight. What’s the”---

“I promised mom I’d be home at eight.” Gabriel had already realized he would not be able to keep that promise. Unless he could somehow teleport home, he was going to be late. More than a little late, in fact.

“I’m sorry, you didn’t tell me…” Peter murmured, both looking and feeling guilty. He did not want Gabriel to get in trouble because of him, especially as they had just recently found each other. “Come on, I’ll drive you home. If we go now, we can get you there on time.”

Gabriel had no time to object as Peter grabbed his car keys with one hand and Gabriel’s wrist with the other. Even after Peter had let go, the place where he was grasped burned Gabriel’s skin. He was both exhilarated and embarrassed at how his body was reacting to Peter’s touch. Mostly, however, he was concerned about Peter finding out how he felt. He did not want to lose his first and only friend by revealing that he was a…

Just as Gabriel thought he had his emotions under control, Peter’s hand brushed his again.

*

“I’m sorry…”

“For what?” Peter asked. They were in the Porsche again, headed to Gabriel’s parents’ apartment. He had given Peter the address minutes earlier, and they were cruising through dense traffic.

“For making you… come out all the way here.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. It’s the least I can do, for getting you in trouble like this.”

Gabriel wanted to say that none of this was Peter’s fault, that he’d gotten himself in trouble, as usual, but the words somehow stuck in his throat. All he could do was stare down at the hands in his lap. A part of him wished the car ride would be over as quickly as possible, while another part wished it would never end. Though Gabriel had never been intoxicated, he wondered if being near Peter could be compared to the feeling.

“Is this is?” Peter suddenly asked and they came to a halt outside a decrepit apartment building.

“Yeah…” Gabriel sighed. Even though Peter was not the type to look down on those less privileged than he, Gabriel was embarrassed. “Thanks for the ride, Peter. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem… See you at school tomorrow?”

Gabriel nodded with a little smile before collecting his possessions and leaving the car. He avoided looking Peter in the eye so that the other would not see how the colour had risen in his face. Damn his fair skin. It made him blush so easily.

Peter sent him a flashing smile, raised his hand in a wave, and then made a sharp U-turn, practically peeling rubber. Gabriel glanced at the wrist-watch he’d forgotten he was wearing. 8:17. He already knew before entering that it had earned him a scolding from his mother.


TBC...