It has been a rather harrowing day for Briony Wexler. Somehow, while caught up amidst the celebrations of Gryffindor winning their last match, Briony found herself cornered by the Hufflepuff with whom she had gone to the previous year’s Governor’s Ball, Orion Kari. The conversation had started harmless enough, until Felicity showed up, and he had cornered her instead. Briony, of course, had gotten annoyed about this, but her annoyance was not to last long, as Orion soon began cornering Felicity in a very different way than how he had done with Briony — a way which even naive Briony knew was not good. His hands were on her cousin’s sides and his face was moving in. Briony had kicked him in the shin and told him to stop it, the pain of which had distracted him from Felicity long enough for her to get away, but Briony now had his attention. His attention to her was not gentle, instead twisting her arm and grabbing the younger girl up, covering her mouth, while Felicity, at first, made to run away. Briony‘s struggling made enough noise for the girl to turn back, and now it was her turn. The shin-kick did not work a second time, though, and it wasn’t until Felicity managed to bite his arm that he let go of the younger Wexler. Though in pain from the bruising, and in a shambles because of her torn robes, Briony ran quickly from the scene. Felicity and Briony became separated at that point, Briony heading to the commonroom and Felicity in another direction. Running through, Briony looks a fright; her robes are torn and mussed, and she even has a small cut on her neck from the scuffle, from which comes a small trickle of blood. The girl is nearly crying, though not quite, as she comes in and plops herself onto a couch quickly, tucking herself up completely before even noticing whether anyone else is in the room or not. It is only now that tears begin to silently flow down the girl’s cheeks while she hugs her knees close to her.

Agonizing as always over a nearly-overdue Transfigurations essay, it is several long moments before Gabriel Goden is even aware of Briony’s presence in a chair not too far from where he is, sitting on the floor in front of a low table by the fire. His careless glance up to her doesn’t tell him much except that she’s there, and he doesn’t catch on to the anguish she’s feeling. In fact, the only indicator that anything is wrong that Gabe recognizes is that Briony didn’t cheerfully greet him and start chattering away like a sugar-high sparrow. But this, he decides, is his payback for his calling her a boy in their last meaningful contact with each other. Women. Little did Briony know, her ‘silent treatment’ was hardly a punishment: ha-ha, Gabriel wins. He continues to work on his essay, purposefully ignoring her.

The glance isn’t noticed at all by Briony, because it is not until afterward that she even notices that he is in there. A rather labored breath in, and she wipes her face carefully — or, well, in typical Briony fashion — with the in-tact sleeve of her robe and then looks at him, a rather red befreckled nose rather obvious, though she seems to be trying to look as if she isn’t crying and about to overflow once again. “Ga– Gabe?” she asks in a quiet, almost mousy voice, completely out of character for the usually exhuberant girl. Her appearance is truly a fright, and her sudden appearance has seemed to frighten a few firsties away up into their dorms, while a few of the older students discreetly glance over their books at her, perhaps in an attempt to hear exactly what the problem is so that they might spread the news first.

Just short of rolling his eyes, Gabriel keeps his head down and appears to continue writing, but the truth is that he is just scribbling in a line now. He never could write and listen at the same time effectively, but he’d rather give off the appearance that he’s /not/ listening (though, he doesn’t really know why). “What?” he answers finally, furrowing his eyebrows and talking in something of an annoyed tone. Thinking her voice sounded funny, though, Gabriel does finally look up long enough to get a good look at her. “Bollocks, what happened to you?” is his callous inquiry — clearly he doesn’t understand the seriousness of the situation.

“I– he– and we– and then — and it hurt and –” is about all that is intelligible in what Briony responds with, her voice high and rather subdued, while the tears flow freely from her eyes. She wipes her face again, but all it manages to do is to aggravate a smudge on her cheek. She sniffs for a moment, her shoulders heaving a bit, and then she buries her face in her arms which she has brought up to rest atop her knees. It is clear that Briony does not know how to handle such a situation as this. Several of the older students seem to lose interest now, and chatter as they walk by, assuming that this is merely the situation of a dramatic younger student, attempting to get attention from a boy. Soon, there are only a few other people in the commonroom while the third year sits in the very corner of the couch, her head buried to stifle the sound of her crying.

Utterly dumbstruck, Gabriel stares stupidly for a minute, completely unsure of what to do. He’s stopped the pretense of writing now, and is giving her his full attention. “Uhh,” Gabriel murmurs, glancing downwards for a second and scratching his head in confusion. She’s still crying when he looks back up at her, unfortunately for Gabe, who bites his lip apprehensively. Slowly, he gets up from his spot on the floor — his essay quickly forgotten — and sits down beside his friend on the couch. “Bri, what happened?” he repeats his question, though there is little insensitivity in his voice. It seems strange to him to pat her or something, so he just shuffles slightly closer to her on the couch.

“That boy, Orion, he tried to hurt Fe-Felicity, he was touching her funny–” she sniffs, “And I kicked him, and– and–” she struggles a breath and wipes her eyes again with her — now rather damp — sleeve. “And he tried to hurt me. He put his hand over my mouth and he was h-holding me, and — and –” Briony pauses and sniffles again, loudly, breathing in deeply again. “He tore up my robes and everything, and I think he would’ve hurt me more if Felicity didn’t bite him.” Briony‘s face is red now, but at least the crying is slowing down a little. “It was horrible. He was so mean to me, and I only wanted to go to the kitchen for a snack.” She sniffs again and just turns to look at Gabriel as she finishes saying this, looking decidedly upset still, though the tears have slowed to a gentle trickle now, rather than a fountain.

Gabriel‘s look of confusion only increases in its intensity as Briony relays these events to him, but eventually mutates into an ugly, angry expression. “Orion? The git you went to the Ball with a while ago, he–” Gabe sits up a little, his hands making fists on their own accord, “he tried to hurt you two?” A glance to the trickle of blood on Briony’s neck gives Gabriel a hot, infuriated feeling all over — hotter than anything he’s felt, even dealing with Rafe or a Quidditch loss. No, this was all new. Digging around in his pockets, Gabriel finds a clean handkerchief at last, and holds it out to Briony. This is something he could do. Crying girls liked handkerchiefs.

Awkwardly, Briony takes hold of the handkercheif, but she doesn’t appear to be accustomed to these things. She dabs at her face a bit with it and shrugs. “I guess he did,” she tells him. “I don’t know why he would want to do that. He was always so nice to us be-before.” She sniffles again, a bit more subdued, and even leans back a little more, not clinging quite so tightly to her knees now. “I think he wanted to– to… kiss Felicity or something,” Briony seems to only just realize. She shakes her head quickly. “I don’t know, it didn’t look like when my mum and dad kiss.” Briony bites her bottom lip and looks at Gabe. “Do you want this back?”

Shaking his head quickly in response to her question about wanting his handkerchief back, Gabriel feels too angry about what stupid Orion’s done to care about much else right now. “That… stupid piece of…” Gabriel utters loathingly, his fists tightening as he begins a chain of forcefully whispered curse words that would make his mother balk. “I’ll kill him,” Gabriel resolves simply, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head at Briony. “He can’t do that. He can’t get away with it.”

Looking at Gabe with rather wide eyes. “Maybe we should just tell Professor Prichard or something instead. Then you don’t get in trouble or anything.” Briony looks down at the handkercheif as she lets one leg hang down while she tucks the other under it, leaning back against the sofa. “I wouldn’t want you to go to Azkaban or anything,” she admits and then looks up at him again. She hadn’t expected him to get this mad. Of course, she hadn’t expected him to be here, either, necessarily. “We’ll tell one of the teachers, we could just tell your mum and she could take care of it. I’m sure he won’t get away with it.”

“Yeah, tell my mum, tell my mum,” Gabriel repeats, trying to calm himself down. She was right, of course, about it being the right thing to do. Even though Gabe has no doubt in his mind that he /could/ kill Orion right now, were he here, he rather does like the fact that he’s never seen a dementor in his life, and that he can go to Hogsmeade every so often. He supposes Azkaban doesn’t have Hogsmeade weekends, so the fact that Briony is settling for an administrative approach to solving this problem does relive Gabriel somewhat. Now, he just sits, breathing heavily, trying to dispel some of his rage. It takes quite a while. When the initial fiery feeling leaves, Gabriel turns to look at his friend and what previously was anger is now just sympathy. She truly does look frightful in such a state of disarray and Gabe is almost overcome with pity. Pity, and a strange impulse that he didn’t think he’d ever have. Only able to ignore it for a second, Gabe soon finds himself leaning close to her, his heart pounding as he touches his lips to her cheek in s quick kiss, leaning back almost immediately after and wondering what on earth he’d just done, and why.

Briony is about to respond to Gabe’s comment about telling her mother, but is stopped short when he kisses her cheek. The spot where his lips have touched turns bright red, though the fact that the rest of her cheeks do as well seems to drown this fact out. Biting her lip, Briony looks at Gabriel for a moment, her lips twisting into a bit of a smile. She seems to have no words to say in response now, though, as if the kiss to her cheek had rendered her mute. Instead, she just looks up at him with a bit of a lopsided grin, still clutching the handkercheif.

‘What did I just do? What did I just do?’ repeats Gabriel Goden in his head, over and over. His whole face is hot, and he can’t bring himself to look at her right away. When he does, Gabe is relieved to see her smiling, not scowling. She didn’t run away, and that was a good sign, thinks Gabriel. She also didn’t slap him. Also a good sign. He’d seen quite a few girls slap Nate for trying things, but those situations had been different, Gabe rationalizes. Taking a deep breath, Gabe looks down for a second, as if contemplating his options. He seems to have come to a decision as he slowly leans in again, closing his eyes as his lips touch hers.

Briony‘s eyes close as his face nears hers, and her smile changes to a rather nervous one, and then his lips are on hers. The sensation is a new one for Briony, and her heart begins to race. So many emotions in one day! The girl lingers for a moment, almost awkwardly, and at the same time, not wanting to draw herself away as she seems to be holding onto the handkercheif as if her life depends on it. It is at this moment that a fit of familiar giggling begins behind them. Nellie. Briony breaks the kiss and turns, red-faced, to see Nellie Caldwell standing at the foot of the stairs, smugly crossing her arms. “I always /thought/ that might be what was going on. I guess everyone’ll know for sure now.” Briony frowns a little at the other Gryffindor, but she’s really quite far from understanding what’s going on, and instead stands up. “Nellie Caldwell, if you tell anybody I’ll… I’ll… I don’t know, I’ll hurt you good!” Briony looks rather menacing as her robes are mussed, as is her hair, and even gossipy Nellie Caldwell seems a bit taken aback by this threat. Will it stop her gossiping? Hard to say. She continues on her way out of the commonroom at this moment, so even Briony doesn’t know as she sits back down. “She’s going to tell /everybody/ and then our mums will know and my mum will never leave me alone.” She sighs as she says this, part of her wishing her mother wouldn’t know, and part of her wishing that she could kiss him again.

Shrugging, Gabriel sighs as if he’s just said something that he’s been bottling up for a long time. “Well…” he says after a while, “In a way, it’s better than, you know, /us/ having to tell them…” he trails off, rather wondering just what he /would/ tell his mum if it came down to that. What did this mean? “So…” Gabriel says awkwardly, the situation with Orion and Felicity drifting away somewhat, replaced with this new confusion and happiness about what just happened with Briony. His eyebrows are raised as he smiles, not knowing what to say.

The Orion situation hasn’t completely left Briony‘s subconscious yet, and with this new situation, as she settles in next to Gabe again, she just seems to be at a loss for words. Instead of saying anything in particular at first, she leans over to put her head on his shoulder, scooting a bit closer as she does this. Though Briony has never been one to be considered a cuddly person, it just seems right for her to do this at this moment. “I guess it’s easier than us telling them. I hope Felicity doesn’t find out right away.” She shrugs a little as she says this, and it is a bit of an awkward moment for right now, Briony be very young and quite inexperienced in this ‘love’ business.

Nodding, Gabriel rather agrees about Felicity not finding out too soon. Not because he’s ashamed or anything, but the whole situation is so new to Gabe that adding Felicity to the mix would only confuse him further. Feeling the weight of Briony’s head on his shoulder, though, he gets a kind of fluttery feeling of nervousness in his stomach, and has /no/ idea what to do with his hands. Rubbing his forehead with his index and middle finger with one hand, he slowly reaches out with his other to pat her knee, but then withdraws it to let it rest in her lap. He quite enjoys the ensuing silence, just sitting.

Other Interesting Logs:

• And Time for a Race, Too
• A Chance Meeting in the Courtyard
• Gabriel the Dragon?
• Only A Little Nervous
• Commonroom Chatter and Social Speculation