CIVILIAN . KINGSTON, GABRIEL

MALE

DEMISEXUAL

TWENTY-TWO

JUNE 10, 1989

ENGLISH

ENGLISH, HAS A BIT OF AN ENGLISH ACCENT WHEN HE SPEAKS. KNOWS SOME BASIC PHRASES IN A FEW OTHER LANGUAGES (I.E. HELLO, GOODBYE, THANK YOU), BUT NOT ENOUGH TO BE WORTH NOTING.

GABE, GABEY, GABBY

0.5

CIVILIAN

N/A

N/A

N/A

SYLPH

RHIANNON CHOU
BAILEY WHELAN
KONSTANTIN LENHOFF

VERY LOW

AMERICA FROM AXIS POWERS HETALIA

A college senior majoring in History and minoring in Classical Civilization at UCLA , Gabriel still has an extra trailing semester left to take care of in the fall. He currently lives alone in a small one-bedroom apartment near the UCLA campus. However, he treats the bedroom of the apartment as more of a study room, opting instead to sleep on the couch in the living room more often than not. Which means that he often has his blankets and pillows scattered all over the living room area on most days. However, barring a visit that he was not told about until the moment someone knocks on the door, he will usually toss all of his bedding back into the bedroom before anyone swings on by. His family (and consequently himself as well) back home all the way in England is solidly middle class, and live in a three-bedroom flat in London. However, due to certain situations at the moment, Gabriel is not too keen on the prospect of going home, and is waiting to see if any slots open up for summer classes so that he doesn't have to do that.

If there was any one word that could be used to encompass Gabriel's looks, that word would be ordinary. Technically, the term would be average, but the thing is, the word "average" can mean one thing for one person and then another for the next. Therefore, ordinary is a better term. Gabriel is ordinary in that he doesn't exactly stand out in a crowd. Face-to-face and one-on-one, people might notice that the young man has a pair of bright, china blue eyes behind his glasses, or the fact that his golden-blonde hair never seems to want to behave quite right, one little stray lock in the front refusing to lay flat no matter what he does. Believe him, many futile attempts have been made in the past. Yes, he can be quite handsome if one were to look, and yes, he does have his charm, but the fact of the matter is, there isn't anything unusual about the way he looks.

Standing at 5'11" in the height department, Gabriel stands on either the taller end of average or the shorter end of tall for males, and is not quite sure exactly which one he should consider himself as. Whatever the case, Gabriel supposes that he should consider himself lucky to have what height he does, because while it isn't exactly impressive in comparison to some others, it's still something. In terms of how he is built, Gabriel is, once again, decidedly ordinary. You see, he isn't one to work out regularly, but doesn't mind going out for some sun and fresh air when he can, and as a result, his build isn't particularly anything to be envious of, but isn't anything that he feels all that self-conscious about either. As far as Gabriel is concerned, he looks healthy, his complexion a peachy-beige that unfortunately does nothing to hide the moments where he is blushing.

In terms of his attire, Gabriel more or less lives by the philosophy of comfy, clean, and properly fitted. If an article of clothing can accomplish all three of those criteria, then he is probably more than simply alright with wearing it. As a result, Gabriel's wardrobe consists primarily of your run-of-the-mill graphic tees and jeans, and while he definitely has enough clothing so that he doesn't seem to be wearing the same things over and over again, there isn't exactly much variety to the way he dresses. He used to wear a brown leather bomber jacket over everything at all times, but it would seem that such isn't necessary in Southern California thanks to the weather. Still, Gabriel carries the jacket with him, just in case. He seems to have a thing for shoes in vivid colors, and his usual footwear of choice is a pair of bright red Converse sneakers. A pair of navy-rimmed glasses serve to remedy his nearsightedness, and he curiously has this one ring that is ever-present around his left ring finger. And before you ask, no, Gabriel is not engaged.

He smiles a lot. A lot, as in whenever he possibly can. Gabriel tries, oh, he tries to find things to smile about. That is why even the smallest things will turn up the corners of his lips, why laughs at even the worst of lame jokes. Smiles are good things, and he wants to be happy. He wants to be happy, so that people around him will be happy. Because happiness, like smiles, is a good thing, and that's why he tries to find happiness in everything he sees, hears, or otherwise perceives with any of his five senses. Gabriel tells himself that there is a lot for him to smile about, that there is no reason to be sad, that happiness begets happiness and therefore he should always aim to be happy. Or at least, that's what he has come to think. It makes sense to him, that being happy can only make him happier. That, however, is the problem -- Gabriel Kingston is not a happy man.

Not that he would ever let anyone know that he isn't happy. That would simply be too much trouble for everyone else, now wouldn't it? No one needs to know the truth, the ugly, ugly truth that he isn't happy, because the truth of the matter is, it's his own fault that he ended up digging himself into the ditch that he is in -- and he knows this. Gabriel believes -- no, knows that it's no one fault but his own that he can't be happy, and therefore, doesn't feel like anyone else should have to deal with his skeletons in the closet. They are his problems to deal with alone, and thus, he doesn't speak of them, so that no one will ever ask him about any of it. As sad as it is, Gabriel prefers it this way. He is, in an unfortunate sort of way, perfectly content with bottling everything up. Because as far as Gabriel is concerned, he has already caused enough trouble for one lifetime, and to let people know that would only add more to the burden that he already shoulders. It is just simply better this way. He is only getting what he deserves, after all.

Guilt, perhaps, is what defines him, and regret is what delineates him. In the grand scheme of things, Gabriel honestly doesn't have that many secrets, but the ones he does have are the sort that loom over him and lurk around every corner, the kinds of secrets that he can never wash his hands clean of. It's complicated, really, and even after all these years, he still has no way of explaining it to anyone who doesn't know it already -- and even then, those who do know, to the best of his knowledge, want nothing to do with it, much less simply let it be. It isn't so much that what he did that continues to haunt him, but rather the consequences that followed. What happened was his fault, and he should have been the one to take the fall. He wasn't. He wasn't the one who was punished for what he did, and that is where his guilt lies. Someone else took his fall for him, and that was wrong. It is still wrong, a wrong that he doesn't know where to start if he wants to right it, and that is why he lives with so much regret bearing down his heart.

The thing is, he knows that he has to keep on moving forward, or at the very least, seem like he's moving forward. Because if there is one thing that Gabriel knows, it's that time doesn't stop. It doesn't stop, and it doesn't wait, no matter how much he wishes it would. And so Gabriel tries, he tries to take it all one day at a time, because anything more would seem like too much to bear. It's difficult though, considering that when he is not fretting over the future, he's wallowing in the past. Gabriel has, over the years, perhaps forgotten what it is like to live in the moment, to focus on the present. The past follows him with every step he takes, the future looms eternally ahead of him, and he is trapped. Gabriel feels like he is constantly trapped by the choices he had made, and the choices he will make. Because choices mean decisions, and decisions mean consequences. A bad decision only leads to even more dire consequences -- this much, Gabriel knows too well.

And yet, despite all of this, despite everything that has gone wrong and caused him to feel like almost everything has come crashing down around him, Gabriel hopes. He hopes, he wishes, he prays, because what else is there that he can do? He is only human, a human who needs something to cling to during hard times -- and what he grasped onto when he reached out, was, of all things, hope. Because it is, as classic a cliche it may be, hope that keeps him going, hope that gives him a reason to wake up to face the morning of yet another regretful day. It is because of hope that Gabriel dares to ask whatever is out, if anything is out there, for a second chance to fix the things that he made supposedly wrong. Hope is why Gabriel even dares to think that maybe, just maybe, he might be granted a second chance of that very sort. And he hates himself for it. He hates that he still has the gall to think that he is possibly even entitled to right his wrongs. Gabriel hates the fact that, in spite of everything, he still has the arrogant audacity to hope. He hopes and hopes and he hates that he does. He doesn't deserve it.

The alarm always went off at six-thirty in the morning as of late, regardless of whether or not he had actually gone to bed the night before. He rarely did go to bed, because Gabriel Kingston didn't sleep in his own bed anymore, hadn't for the past few months at least. The bed in his room had long been stripped of the covers that had once been draped over them, and one of the two pillows had been missing for what felt like ages -- because he had dragged them out to the living room of the little apartment he lived in during the school year, preferring to sleep on the couch these days. Gabriel found that he liked it much better as of recently, found it easier to sleep curled up there while cocooned in his blankets and turned so that he was facing the backrest, lulled to sleep by the slow, steady tick of the clock. This aversion to sleeping in his own bed was only one of several things that had recently changed for the young man, be it for better or worse.


Mr. and Mrs. Kingston had been very clear on one thing when Gabriel was growing up, and that was that he had been named after an angel in the Bible. A lot of things were expected of a child named after an angel, they told him. Being named after an angel meant that he was expected (read: required) to be a good boy -- a good Christian boy, no less. (Gabriel would eventually learn in time that such was not necessarily the case, but rather what his parents thought the name was supposed to entail.) It meant that he was both required to have good grades and attend Sunday school, meant that he was to always remember his manners and to say grace before every meal. He was the boy who would tattle on the other boys for looking up girls' skirts, the boy who was always trying to impress all of his parents' friends who went to church with them on Sundays by reciting Bible passages even if he had no idea what they actually meant, much less what they actually spoke of. He was young, and that was what was true to him at that tender age.

That was then, not now. These days, Gabriel has too many questions about too many things that no pastor to this day had managed to give him an answer about that he could be satisfied and at peace with. He grew up in England, and in England, just like anywhere else in the world, you meet people, and from them, you will learn a great number of things. Things that change you, challenge you, strike at something inside of you in the far corners of your mind. And that's exactly the thing -- growing up, Gabriel had heard too many things spoken of between his friends, seen too many things happen between people, and in one instance, done just onething that went against everything that he had been taught at home by his mother and father. "Why?" his peers would ask, and somewhere along the way, he stopped giving answers and started to ask the same question all the same. The truth is, Gabriel doesn't know if he believes in God anymore. On some level, he wants to because it is something familiar, but the fact remains that these days, the number of bones that he has to pick with the religion's doctrine (be it trivial, controversial, or otherwise) is a thing he has long lost track of. The honest truth of it all is that Gabriel has learned that he has found God to be unfair -- and terribly cruel.


You can't change the past -- you can only learn from it. That much, Gabriel probably knew better than anyone in his family. Wasn't that why people studied history in the first place, so that they could learn about civilizations past in order to (hopefully) not repeat the same mistakes as their predecessors? It was exactly this aspect about history, how it was a window through which to catch a glimpse of a past that otherwise would have been lost to the passage of time, that caught Gabriel's interest from a young age. History was to him what music was to his twin brother, Michael -- a passion and fascination that would supposedly follow him for the rest of his life. (Though, if Gabriel were to be honest, he thought that Michael's love for music was so much grander, not to mention that there was maybe something that he could make out of it eventually, probably.) Gabriel would eventually opt to study history at an American university, on the other side of the world.

But the thing was, the very fact that the past could not be changed would come back to haunt him. History was the result of the actions of man and what man thought was his destiny. If Gabriel were to define history for himself, it is not so much a chronicle of the events that had once transpired, but rather a single, continuous record of the consequences of mankind's decisions through the centuries. History, as Gabriel came to know it, was the result of consequences that resulted from actions -- that echoed true for any sort of history, personal history included. Because just like the history of the world, the history of one's life was something that could not be changed once the consequences of one's actions came into fruition. He should have kept his hands to himself and stayed out of the bedroom while there was alcohol in his veins. He should not have even had that one extra drink that one time, should not have gone to that party at all. He should have just stayed at home like the good be he was. Was being the keyword, and this is why the past still haunts him. It was -- still is his fault. Gabriel isn't a good boy, because how he sees it, it was entirely his fault that their parents had kicked Michael out.


Gabriel lost track of how many people had asked him if he is engaged -- for the record, he isn't, though he supposes that he's just asking for people to ask him that because of the ring he chooses to wear around his left ring finger. A pewter ring, shaped like a feather that curled around the base of his finger. It was a gift, and he has his own reasons for choosing to wear it around his left ring finger. Though proven to be nothing more than a fallacy, it used to be believed that there was a vein that ran straight from the left ring finger to the heart -- vena amoris, or the vein of love, they called it. But despite being proved as false, Gabriel supposes that he could understand the sentimentality of the idea of wearing a ring from a special someone around the finger through which a vein to the heart ran. It was because of that sentiment exactly that he chose to wear the feather ring the way he does. Gabriel feels that he owes something from his heart to the person who had given him the ring, though they probably have no idea that he wears it on his left ring finger. What he owes to them is a heartfelt apology for everything he has done.

There is a lot that Gabriel wants to apologize for, actually. That's simply how it is. He was the one who messed up, so there is no doubt that it's his responsibility to right what he wronged. He's already decided what he is going to do if he manages to fix what he broke. All of this happened because he stepped outside of the line that he had been raised to stand behind, he is sure. It is his fault, but other people, other very important people to him were the ones who suffered and paid for his transgressions -- and that alone to Gabriel is the cruelest thing of all. In a way, he wonders if having to watch someone he cares about suffer for his errors is some sort of punishment, be it divine or not. He may doubt God from his own experiences, but say for a moment that he was wrong to doubt, and that God did end up being the real deal -- Gabriel made a deal with the God that he wasn't sure if he still believed in or not, that if he could fix the wrongs and make them right again, he would step behind that line again and stay there for good.


He fears that there is a possibility that, push come to shove, he might not be able to keep that promise he made. The truth is, Gabriel believes -- no, knows that he's already already gone too far, gone much too deep into something forbidden and taboo and decidedly what his parents (and just about the rest of the world too) would call depraved. That alone should be reason enough, he understands, for him to renounce the very thing that has brought him to this point. Because even if his parents had claimed that he would be forgiven if he stayed behind those carefully drawn lines from now on, that they would be content to pretend that it never happened as long as he played the game of life by their rules and beliefs, he can still feel their eyes boring down at him with contempt and judgment. Where had they gone wrong, they would whisper to each other. What had they done to deserve such a terrible thing, they would murmur when they thought Gabriel couldn't hear them. There is a reason why Gabriel doesn't go home for his school breaks anymore unless he is absolutely forced to. Christmas and Easter are spent far away from home, and the summertime has become a dreary and dreadful thing.

The problem is that this that is supposedly depraved, awful, and offensive makes Gabriel happy. He isn't as strong as he would like to believe these days, slowly and steadily crumbling under the pressure of grad school applications, internship interviews, a final thesis, and the usual end of semester exams and essays. In theory, he should be able to handle this (like everyone else around him), but the reality is, he can't. The pressure is simply too much, and he just can't do it. As the clock ticks down towards his final semester of university and graduation, Gabriel is increasingly finding that he simply isn't ready to grow up yet. Because he wants to be eighteen years old again. Eighteen years old, still young and carefree and naive, so naive that it bordered on an innocence that almost physically hurt. Gabriel wants to be eighteen again, because eighteen was how old he was before any of this happened. Eighteen was when things were happy and good and right. Eighteen was when his parents smiled at him and still loved Michael. Eighteen was before he fell in love with what he is called depraved for, the very love that both was, is, and will always be the fault for which he owes an apology and now fears he will never be able to let go of. Eighteen was, in a strange way, when he had everything.


At this point, it has started to feel like there really nothing he can do but to let life run its course. Do what you can, see where it takes you, hope for the best. He has come this far, why not just... let things be? That might just very well be the only thing left that he can do, Gabriel sometimes finds himself starting to believe. Muscle through it, get into grad school (any one would do, as long as he ended up with one to go to), earn his degrees, find a job, be an adult, let time do its thing. To some extent, Gabriel hopes that time will smooth out his guilt and round out the edges of his regrets so that they aren't so sharp anymore. Maybe time is what he needs, he often thinks to himself. Maybe time will find a way to make everyone forget, or even better, learn to forgive. Maybe time will be kind, and help him right what he wronged and make everything the way it was supposed to be again. (But time is anything but kind, Gabriel feels he should know better than anyone, and the belief that time heals everything eventually is only but wishful thinking.)

Time, after all, was the very essence of history, and in that respect, he could learn to not repeat history if time would simply allow him that opportunity. If given the chance, Gabriel would very have jumped at it without a second thought. In a way, he was holding out for that second chance, hoping, wishing, praying to a God that he wasn't even sure if he believed in anymore. It was the morning of an exam, and he hadn't slept the night before when he made the decision to swing by his mailbox. Usually, it would just be a bunch of junk mail and maybe one or two semi-important things, but on that particular morning, there was only a single letter inside. It was strange, for there to only be a single letter, and Gabriel, perhaps against his better judgment (in his defense, he hadn't slept), opened the letter. It was a very short letter, little more than a few scrawled out sentences, but the world still came to a screeching halt. He had been given a second chance. His twin was here, out there in Los Angeles. "Bring me home," Michael had said.