It's Only a Model

[Tim Tawfeek]

Tim groaned as he realized what had happened. This was the misfortune of the nerd. To be specific, the misfortune of the kind of nerd like Tim, who would occasionally buy a model and put it together. He didn't do this on a regular basis, mostly because, well, stuff like this had a tendency to happen. Yet he'd seen an actual replica of an early Star Wars Pod-racer and he just had to have it. Pod Racing had been the coolest part of that series, though honestly Tim liked the movie in the sort of bad movie way. Plus, Jar-Jar was just hilarious, though, like, not at all in the way his original creators had probably intended.

So he'd bought the model, then decided that he should work in the student lounge. There were two reasons for this: (1) Tim didn't like the fumes from the glue getting stuck in his room and (2) in case pretty much this exact situation happened. For as pointed out earlier, Tim wasn't exactly great at this. His powers did not give him magical finger dexterity, nor did it give him immunity to glue.

Yeah, he'd gotten his fingers stuck together.
Again.

Tim sighed, raising his hands up and hitting his head on the table a few times. Yep, this was definitely something that would happen. Okay, he just needed to look around and---and someone was looking at him. no, at the model. A girl someone. "It's a pod-racer," he said, looking first at it, then at her. "You know, from Star Wars." Just ignore the fingers which were currently fused together with modeling glue. That would be best for everyone involved.

[Gabriela Moreau]

It wasn't so much the kid working on the model that had caught Gabriela's attention at first so much as it was the plastic project being crafted itself. The petite girl was, obviously, a huge fan of Star Wars, had been since she was little. If Tim, the boy she recognized from around campus, as well as the movie and theatre club they were both in, had been constructing a replica of the Millennium Falcon, a TIE Fighter, or an AT-AT walker she wouldn't have given it a second thought. But a pod racer from Episode One? Wasn't that blasphemy or something? At least it didn't look like it came with a figure of that Jar-Jar Binks abomination. That would've been a deal breaker right there.

The sound of a boy's skull smacking a table was what really drew Gabriela to stare at the strange sight longer than she should have been. With a furrowed brow she watched Tim do his mini-freak out. It wasn't everyday she got to see a kid with his fingers glued together bang his head against the table he'd been making a model on. Gabriela couldn't help but laugh. It wasn't a harsh, biting laughter of someone mocking the poor kid, but rather a soft, almost flirtatious snicker. “Are you okay?” She asked, slipping her petite form off the couch where she had not been anywhere near interested in whatever had been playing on the TV.

Curiously the girl's eyes looked over the partially completed project. “That's Sebulba's pod racer, isn't it?” Perhaps, on second thought, she was a little impressed with his choice of model. Episode One was notoriously reviled among geek culture and to forgo the cliches and opt for the antagonist's craft was met with an approving nod. “Most people go for Anakin's.” Her gaze shifted up to look at Tim who, even with his strikingly average stature stood nearly a head taller. She gave him a smirk and promptly nudged his shoulder. “Or at least something from one of the good movies.” Leave it to Gabriela to begin ribbing the guy about his choice of models when his fingers were stuck together.

Blinking, Gabriela shook her head a little to snap her attention back to focus on the real problem. “Sorry.” She said with as sheepish grin. “Do you have any rubbing alcohol or anything like that?” Her brow furrowed again as she scanned the contents of the table. She didn't know why he would, but, hey, it was worth a shot.

[Tim Tawfeek]

"mostly," replied Tim, looking up at the girl. She looked vaguely familiar, but, well, a lot of people looked vaguely familiar to Tim, especially girl peoples. Sure, his attentions had been more or less laser-focused of late, but that hadn't stopped him from noticing prior to now. He perked up further as she continued though.

"Most people are stupid. Sebulba had the better machine all around. Anakin just won because he's the chosen Plot Baby," said Tim, snorting derisively, "and those totally were the good movies. I mean, c'mon, pod racing," he pointed with his locked hands, "better light-saber fights, and Jar-Jar Binks. He was a wholly accurate representation of my people," Tim looked at her with a dead series expression, his face steely, his eyes hard. Bit hard to be too severe when you fingers were together, and he flicked his eyes toward them when she said that.

"Not on me. Chugged it all back in the room first," replied Tim, jerking his fingers back. "I mean, obviously." he grinned then, nodding. "I'm Tim by the way. I swear I've seen you somewhere. I wanna say... Ginny?"

[Gabriela Moreau]

"Okay." Gabriela eyed Tim suspiciously. She wasn't sure what to make of his assessment of the beginning of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. "I'll give you the light saber battles." She had to concede that one, there really wasn't a contest there. "I don't know about the pod racing." That was a tougher sell for the girl. The original trilogy held a soft spot in her heart, among many other decidedly geeky things. "But I can kinda see it." Her eyes narrowed some as she scrutinized Tim's expression. "You lost me at 'Jar-Jar', though. No convincing me of that one."

Yet again, Gabriela had found herself distracted by shop talk. Her eyes flitted up to Tim as he introduced himself and she flashed him a bright smile in spite of their obvious disagreements on Lucas' treatment of a beloved story and Tim's predicament. The smile wavered just faintly as he threw out a name that, aside from the first letter, was nothing close. "Gabriela." She corrected, although the smile had faded, it did so to a coy smirk. They were in the same grade and both were in the Movie and Theatre Club. If he didn't at least recognize her she'd probably be offended.

She frowned, though, having already suspected there'd be nothing suitable for getting Tim's finger unstuck nearby but that didn't stop her from shifting to turn her dark brown eyes out over the student lounge. Maybe there was something there. The solution struck her like a ton of brick. "Ah, hell." She muttered to herself, looking back to Tim and giving an almost apologetic shrug while turning to head over to the couch where she had been sitting. "I'm an idiot, sorry about that." The tiny brunette plucked the small pack she used as a purse and unzipped the main flap and started foraging through it. "Ah ha!" She said triumphantly as she produced a plastic bottle of nail polish remover and held it straight up as if she'd just found the Master Sword.

Tossing the back back onto the couch, Gabriela hurried over to Tim's aid. "Here, give me your hands." She said, not waiting for him to comply and simply grabbing at his hand with her slender fingers. "Do you glue yourself together like this often?" She asked idly as she carefully splashed some of the strong smelling liquid into the crease of Tim's glued fingers. Her attention was strictly focused upon the task at hand, although she couldn't help but smirk to herself in the process.

[Tim Tawfeek]

"Dude, pod-racing is awesome. Like, exhibit A is right there," Tim pointed at the still incomplete pod-race sitting on the desk. At least the girl gave him the light-saber battles. She clearly didn't get how to like things ironically either. Tim almost sighed, but he supposed he couldn't get everyone to see things in his strange, skewed world view. Things would be a lot easier if he could though.

"Ah, got you confused with the Weasley girl or something," said Tim, shrugging. He wasn't that far off though, all things considered. At least he'd noticed her (like he wasn't going to notice a cute girl anywhere near his general vicinity) and gotten close to the accurate description of her name.

"Err, what?" was all he could manage as Gabriela kept going, calling herself an idiot. "It's okay, people don't normally get how to properly appreciate---oh, you have--- nail polish remover in your purse," because of course she did, because purses were magic. really, Tim didn't see why guys just weren't allowed to carry them. Clearly the females wanted to continue their superiority over the males for as long as they possibly could. Not other explanation made sense.

And soon he was extending his hand toward the girl, or, well, hands. "Uh, not really," lied Tim. "This is totally the first time it's ever happened. Which is why I wasn't prepared. Obviously," he nodded. Soon he was wincing as the scent of it wafted up toward him, heavy and thick. At least her attention seemed to be more focused on his fingers than anything else. Made it a lot easier to just sort of skate past his idiocy (which was both frequent and noticeable).

"Do you? You know, get your fingers stuck. Since you have the nail polish remover on hand and everything. Unless that's your mutant power or something. Bag of infinite tricks or something," which would rank among the coolest powers in Tim's expert opinion.

[Gabriela Moreau]

"Eh." Gabriela made a low noise from the back of her throat as she reconsidered her stance on the pod-racing in Episode I. He brow furrowed a bit and she reluctantly nodded. "Okay, you got me. I'll concede the pod-racing was pretty cool." She smirked faintly, lifting her eyes from the model strewn about the table to Tim. At least he stuck to his guns about what he liked. Nothing was more annoying than someone who would always change their opinions in the face of adversity, even if those opinions were about something as relatively pointless as Episode I.

The petite girl then gave a faint shrug. "Yeah, I get that a lot." She said with a bit of a frown. "Although I don't get called Weasley very often." A single brow perked up as she looked to Tim curiously. "I know this might cost me my geek card, but you dropping Harry Potter references at me?" She thought 'Ginny' and 'Weasley' were names or something from that series. "'Cause if you are, I'm not going to get it." There was another shrug. Those books and movies had been something that had escaped her over the years. One of these days, she kept telling herself.

Gabriela looked up from Tim's fingers to his face with a coy smirk. "I'm a girl." She pointed out in hopes that had been obvious from the get-go. "I have nail polish remover because I have nail polish." She lifted a hand from Tim's and wiggled her fingers daintily, showing off the subtle, but still glossy finish of her nails. "And as awesome as Hammerspace would be to have as a power, I'm a pyrokinetic." She added, her nose scrunching up some in disdain either at the mention of her mutant power or the smell of the remover as she doused Tim's fingers again, just for good measure.

[Tim Tawfeek]

At least Tim had won his battles over Episode one, well, the ones that matter. He'd long since given up hope of convincing people that Jar-Jar Binks was some kind of strange, avante garde type of awesome. He'd write a paper about it some day or something, blow their minds. Right now, he was more focused on the fact that some geek girl didn't even get Harry Potter references. Honestly, like that wasn't the bread and butter for most of the female geek culture.

"Yeah, it's a Harry Potter reference. C'mon you had to have at least seen the movies or something," said Tim, not quite believing whath e was hearing. He eyed her for a bit, then hesitated, even debating jerking his hands back as he continued: "you're not... a Twihard, are you? Because you are, as you point out, a girl, one with nail polish no less, but you don't know Harry Potter," Tim narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "I think I'd almost rather have my fingers forever stuck together then get help from one of those people."

You'd think Tim talked about some sub-species of human being, like a Morlock or something. He didn't move too far away just yet, since she had known about Star Wars, and generally speaking, Twihard and Star Wars fan didn't go together well. Still, she could be some random freak... well, besides being one of those random freaks who'd won the genetic lottery and ended up a mutant. Obviously.

[Gabriela Moreau]

Gabriela responded with a shake of her head and an apologetic smirk. "Sorry, Tim." She said. "I saw parts of one of the movies a while back." Her brow furrowed in thought as she tried to remember the bits she had seen. "There was a werewolf or something, I think." The thoughtful expression melted away the instant Tim mentioned the drab tale of sparkly vampires and their boring love lives. "Oh, god." Her nose scrunched in disdain at the mere thought. "God no." She laughed though, being a good sport in it all. "Look, I'll punch you in the balls if you don't agree Han shot first but I'd probably take you to bed if you prefer Picard, no disrespect to Kirk, mind you." Her dark eyes shifted up from the glued together fingers to catch Tim's gaze. "I should be offended you even looked at me while uttering the title of the Work That Shall Not Be Named."

Quickly, though, Gabriela's attention went back the project at hand. She scraped a nail in between the glued together skin of Tim's fingers a moment then nodded faintly. "Alright, work that around a bit. Give it a try." She said. Hopefully they'd given the nail polish remover enough time to do it's business on the glue but, if not, Gabriela still has nearly half a bottle of the acrid smelling liquid for the job. She'd just have to remember to go pick some more up when she got the chance.

[Tim Tawfeek]

"A shirtless werewolf," corrected Tim, sliding it in there. Gabriela did back up her geek credentials almost immediately after, hitting a few of the major ones. Everyone knew that Han shot first, of course, but Picard over Kirk? "Picard might rule the internet, but Kirk got all the babes. So long as you don't factor in Lens Trek, he's pretty much untouchable."

Tim adjusted so that Gabriela could work at the glue between his nails, shifting impatiently. He wiggled a bit, pulling at his fingers and moving around. It mostly hurt at this point, which had Tim wincing. "Yeah, is this supposed to, like, be magical or something? I was totally under the impression I was going to, like, be magically freed of glue here."

Tim pulled again, actually feeling the skin on his fingers shift. "Yeah, I think it needs to sit a while longer," he muttered, setting his hands down on the table. He drummed with the rest of his fingers, before looking at Gabriela. "Picard over Kirk, really? Even with all the slash-fics? Or are they slashing Picard with someone now. Riker, maybe? Or Wesley, I suppose..."

[Gabriela Moreau]

Gabriela shrugged faintly. It wasn't that she couldn't see why Kirk was the obvious favorite for so many fans, she just already had her little girl crush and wasn't going to be swayed. "Yeah, I know." She said in reply. "Kirk's got the looks, and he's the brash, head strong hero type, and he's great." But there was something missing for her. "But the way Picard leads, you know?" She leaned against the table some as she thought about it, her head tilting upwards just faintly as if she was talking about some crush she had on the football team here at the school. "He so calm, collected. How he's always in control." She smirked a little, her eyes shifting briefly to Tim. "And that accent, come on. There's just something..." She gave a short, almost sheepish shrug. "Sexy about it, I don't know." She stood straight again. "I don't know. Or maybe I just got into T.N.G. first and that's always stuck out to me."

"No." The brunette snickered faintly. "It's not magic, it probably might take a little while. I just thought since you'd just did it maybe it was still soft and, yeah. Sorry." She gave a frown though, and glanced toward Tim's poor fingers. "That kind looked like it hurt." Gabriela winced for Tim, even if it really hadn't hurt that bad, she still sympathized.

And they were back to the Kirk versus Picard discussion before Gabriela knew it. She chuckled and shook her head. "Hell, I don't know." She'd never been much of a fan fiction reader. She'd dabbled briefly a few years back but it never stuck and most of it sucked anyway. She never cared to read crappy stories that centered mainly around the strange erotic fantasies of a nearly psychotic fan base. "What, do you write fanfic?" She asked with a faint smirk playing on her lips. She wasn't quite sure if she'd had Tim pegged yet, but she was beginning to get an idea of the type of guy he was.

[Tim Tawfeek]

Eh, Tim didn't quite get the fascination with the whole British accent thing. They always sounded like they were about to reprimand you for spilling something on the carpet or being untidy or something along those lines. Now, Italian accents on the other hand..

"My fingers are fine, thank you," said Tim, attempting to act manly for once in his life. in truth they hurt like heck, but he was pretty sure it would pass after a bit longer. The magic clearly wasn't about to kick in just yet. Then again, he shouldn't've expected as much, given that the girl clearly didn't know a Hufflepuff from a Hippogriff.

Or be much into fanfiction, which was making her come off less and less like most girl geeks that Tim had ever known. Definitely suspicious, and more likely one of those girl-nerds who'd gotten into whatever because their dad did and they were desperately clinging to some perception of things. Not that Tim was gonna say as much: Gabriela was way too cute to call her out on the nerd cred thing.

"Better: I review them,' he said, smirking. "Though I've written some in the past. Coupla Manimal ones, and at least one epic involving Robbie the Robot and the Mystery Science Theatre crew." Tim nodded. "It's gotten at least, like, a thousand views on fanfiction.net," it really had, though at least in part because Tim had read it a few hundred times himself. "I've also got a video that went viral," of him crashing a glider into a tree while screaming like a girl, as opposed to his more official blogs.

Man, he really needed to make better vids.

[Gabriela Moreau]

With the asertion his fingers were fine, Gabriela turned her attention to Tim's resume as he listed off just some of his 'impressive' accomplishments. She couldn't help but smirk. She was surprised fan fiction was still a thing these days. Then again, she supposed they weren't so far removed from being the 13-15 year olds she always pictured writing the stuff. "Oh, you review it?" She said, nodding with just a faint trace of amusement in her voice. She wasn't sure if that was something she'd admit freely, even to other obvious geeks. "I can only imagine the Rule 34 horrors you've had to endure on that job." She said with a laugh.

"I don't know." Gabriela shrugged her slender shoulders and went to lean against the table again. "I never got into fan fiction much." She reiterated. "I've always been too erratic to stick to one story or genre very long." She admitted, glancing up to Tim. "But I love storytelling, figure that one out?" She chuckled a little at herself. "Thankfully my uncle got me into RPG's when I was little." Her eyes flashed happily at the memories of being a little girl and spending time with her beloved uncle while they sat around a table and rolled dice to move the tiny, metal figurines around their miniature battlefield and falling hopelessly in love with the art of crafting the stories and campaigns. "That lets me scratch the storytelling itch without getting bored so fast."

[Tim Tawfeek]

"Hey, sometimes that Rule 34 stuff can be awesome. Othertimes it involves Spock having Pon Far sex with his future or past self," Tim shuddered, remembering just how awful that had been. He actually thought that Snape had shown up somewhere in that too, but he didn't see any point in mentioning that now.

Gabriela did have what sounded like a decent excuse for not getting into fanfiction, though Tim still wasn't fully convinced. He held onto his skepticism, but buried it a little. He could manage that, especially when girls were involved. The mention of RPGs had him wondering though, even if it did make sense, especially when you had a relative involved. Tim knew people who'd been gaming since they were, like, four because a dad or older brother or someone had been super into it and needed a healer.

"When you say RPG, do you mean, like, Dungeons and Dragons and White Wolf and all that? Or are you talking about, like, Final Fantasy? Just tell me it's not that really weird stuff where you get on the internet and, like, write about fictional characters in strange settings on a website or something. Those people are just weird, trust me,' said Tim, nodding with great knowledge. And it came from someone who'd glued his fingers together, so you know it had to be all kinds of weird.

[Gabriela Moreau]

Gabriela didn't exactly agree with Tim's view of the 'Rule 34' fan fiction that littered the internet but it wasn't something she was going to argue. Different strokes and all that jazz was something Gabriela did firmly believe in, especially when it came to people and their interests. She was hardly one to judge. She adored ABBA and 80's pop music, after all.

The girl smiled lightly and offered a faint laugh. "Oh, no. Make no mistake." Se said with an assuring nod. "I'm a dice queen, have been as long as I can remember." He eyes dropped from Tim as she went to look about the various model pieces still strewn about the table. "D and D, White Wolf, GURPS, you name it, I've probably played it or at least read something on it." She did give a bit of a sigh. "I haven't really found anyone else to play with here, though." And that did actually make her a little sad. She loved the stereotypical game night. The players and the GM all seated around a table, soda, chips, and other junk food mingling with the books, pencils, dice and character sheets. But, what can you do?

Gabriela's eyes then lifted to Tim as the hint of a smirk began playing at her lips. "Why do I feel like I'm being interrogated?" She asked, amused by the whole thing. She then went to stand straight, folding her slender arms across her chest. "Do you make a habit of challenging the credibility of every girl who claims to be a geek you run across?" There was absolutely no malice in the petite brunette's voice. In fact, her confidence in her geek status made her want to prove his skepticism wrong.  Gabriela was well aware that she didn't come off as a geek, even though she made no attempt to hide it. She was petite, pretty (at least that's what a few people had told her before), a standout on the track team and, most damning of all, she was a cheerleader and had been for a long time. And to have someone like Tim who so obviously reveled in his status as a hardcore geek to be challenging her, well, challenge accepted.

[Tim Tawfeek]

"That's cool. I'm not sure if there's a group around here or anything though," Tim paused for a moment. He supposed if there were enough people that were interested, they could at least try something. He'd run a game or two in the past. It did sound like Gabriela might be interested too, and Tim was pretty sure he could bully Evan into at least trying it out. Shame that he hadn't seen Karl in a while... did he know anyone else who might be interested?

Just as Tim was half tempted to ask, Gabriela called him out on his not so subtle near-interrogation. "What? No, nah, nope,' he said, shaking his head. "That's so totally not what I was doing. Not at all. I just talk a lot and sound like an idiot most of the time, especially around girls. Seriously, haven't you seen my blog? It's pretty much just a video diary of me being an idiot, often involving girls."

Tim shrugged, which pulled at his fingers again. He thought he felt them moving slightly, and he looked down, tilting his head and frowning slightly. He gave it a few more tugs, but nothing seemed to move, so he sighed. "So yeah, babbling and crap. Not like I've got anything better to do until this works its magic," he said, holding it up. "Unless I try working at the model with my pinkies or something."