Miles & Gabriel, backdated to Friday 11/21

[x-otoxic.livejournal.com]

With nothing better to do on a Friday night, Gabriel decides to horn in on Miles's nerdfest of the Spider-Man movie on TV and Dragon Age: Inquisition.


It wasn't like Clint not to respond to Gabriel's texts, especially when they were as obviously enticing as the ones that Gabriel had just sent.

That's what prompted him to break from tradition and head to Clint's suite. Concern. Nothing crude or carnal or whatever. He was slinking down the halls, armed with an excuse about needing someone with keen eyesight to search for something small, because he was worried Clint was dead in a ditch somewhere. Yes.

It was a small miracle the door to Clint's suite was open, and he wouldn't have to give his stupid excuse answer after all. Except the occasional Spanish interjections he heard from down the hall made him realize that whoever was in the common room of Clint's suite was not Clint. And that really left only one option.

Gabriel focused and activated his powers before speeding into the room. He appeared next to a scrawnier figure hunched over a computer. "Boo," he whispered.

Miles's spider-sense buzzed before the sound left Gabriel's lips, and Miles instinctively launched into an impressive flip over the couch, laptop still firmly in his grasp. "¡Ay, puñeta!" he exclaimed. "Gabriel! ¿Qué demonios? There's no world where that was necessary." Harsh language aside, he still wore a slight grin of amusement. It was kind of funny.

"Well, duh." Gabriel grinned back and shrugged. "But like, why are you even still awake? Isn't it past your bedtime?"

"Not on a Friday night the week that the new Dragon Age came out," Miles replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "What are you doing here? I mean, it's cool to stop by, I'm just sayin'."

"Dragon Age?" Gabriel cocked an eyebrow. "Oh my God, nerd. I don't even know what to do with that."

"Shut up. It's just a video game." That came out more defensively than Miles intended. "You wouldn't be saying that if this was, like, GTA 5."

"Well," Gabriel started to be defensive himself before realizing Miles was more or less right. So instead, he flopped onto the couch the younger boy had just flipped over. "Fine. Fair. Doesn't make it any less true, though."

"Cállate." Miles took his seat again next to Gabriel, checked to make sure that he hadn't accidentally ripped out the power cord from his laptop, and returned to his game. Well, the character creation menu, which he'd been spending the last 40 minutes working with. "So, ¿qué pasa? Not out clubbing it up tonight?"

"Nah." Gabriel shrugged. He glanced at his nails. "I usually work Fridays, but I did a thing earlier for some rich people who are pretty showy tippers, and now I've got the night off. Schedules get all weird 'cause of the holiday. Point is, I don't really have any plans, and it's not like there's a ton to do around here, sabes?"

"Comprendo. Kinda slumming it if you're hanging out with me, though. Dragon Age and Spider-Man on a Friday night?" Miles nodded at the TV, where Tobey Maguire and Willem Dafoe were chewing the scenery. "You're not gonna get any cool points from that, Teach."

Gabriel glanced at the TV. "Ugh, this movie? Really?" He shook his head, watching Tobey Maguire work. "You got a stack of comic books and a gallon of Mountain Dew too?" He shook his head. "James Franco in this movie, my God."

Miles made a face. "I'd rather drink crab juice. Do I look like I Reddit?" He wouldn't mention his username there. And the stack of comic books was still at home, anyway. "Also, cállate again, because this movie is the opposite of wack. Peter Parker is a role model even if he has flop taste in women."

"One, you don't dig Kirsten Dunst? C'mon." Gabriel shook his head. "Two, role model? Still planning your career as a future X-Men?"

"I only date women of color," Miles quoted. "And duh. Only been here two months. That hasn't changed yet. Spider-Man is inspirational. All he wants is to help and do good. Like that guy who pretended to be him back in Brooklyn a little while ago." Yeah, that guy.

"Oh, please," Gabriel waved a hand. "Coño, este idiota, por favor. Dude wanted to get famous. Don't you read all that angry shit on the Internet? We're the selfish, paparazzi-me-please generation or something."

"So? Even if he was all up on Vine and whatever, he did fight crime. And racist police. That was all over the news back in my neighborhood. People loved him." That all came out more defensive than Miles thought in his head, and there was definitely some exaggeration sprinkled in there, too. But his honor was at stake! Not that Gabriel knew, but still. "Nothing wrong with a little popularity."

"Popularity's dumb."

"Says the guy who makes a living being attractive to drunk people," Miles teased back. "I've seen that episode of It's Always Sunny. I know how you work."

"Yeah, but that's transactional. They order, there's flirting, drinks get exchanged for cash. Maybe you get a phone number, and then, you know." He shrugged. "Not a bad way to make living, except for the part where you're a walking stay-in-school advertisement."

Miles rolled his eyes as he (finally) added the finishing touches to his character. "So popularity's only OK if it's for the sake of capitalism. Not judging. Just saying that it's not bad to do good things and get recognized for them."

"Well, my point is that it's not really popularity, but okay." Gabriel craned his neck to watch Miles play with eyes or hair or whatever the hell it was computer games made you do. Mario Kart had been so simple. "I'm not complaining about people helping people, just saying that fake Spider-Man guy was putting on a show."

Miles shrugged and tried to ignore that sudden tight feeling in his chest. "Still don't think that's a bad thing. That's kinda the point of movie Spider-Man, too."

"Fair enough. Maybe the world likes having heroes to believe in, and I'm a mean cynical jackass." He grabbed his phone and started tapping out another text. "I'm more villain than hero anyway."

Now that was a laugh. "You're the woobie villain all the fangirls cry over who just deep down wants to be loved, and will turn his tune once he finds the right Mary Sue. ¿Correcto o no?"

Gabriel stayed quiet and smiled cryptically. He hit send on his phone and looked up. "Tell me about your game."

"It's the third in the series," Miles explained. "The first was about this this demon invasion you have to stop before it destroys your country. The second is about a guy who runs away during this invasion, becomes a refugee in another place, and ends up accidentally starting a war between wizards and the church. This one's supposed to be about an inquisitor of the church trying to stop the war. It's mad cool. You create your own character and can make 'em look however you want. See, I've got a lady elf archer." He turned his laptop so Gabriel could see his character firing off arrow after arrow at oncoming demons."

"Wait, is the church the enemy?" That, Gabriel could get behind. He leaned forward from his perch on the couch to look at Miles' computer screen. He smirked and raised his eyebrows. "Busty gal, isn't she?"

"You can completely customize your character, including sus tetas. And I guess it depends on how you see it. Like, the Chantry is worried about mages summoning demons and stuff so they round up all the mages and keep them in towers so if they do go bad then they can be stopped. But then that makes the mages mad so they do summon demons. And then the Chantry calls for a Rite of Annulment and mages are like, what's the point? So they go evilcrazy and kill everyone they see." Miles was getting way into this line of thought, completely oblivious to Gabriel's understanding or interest.

"Sometimes it's kinda like they're trying to make this like mutants and humans," he continued. "Humans are scared about what mutants can do so they try to control us, but then some mutants don't like that and put buckets on their heads and call themselves Magento, which just makes the humans think they were right all along."

"Well, that's kinda pat." Gabriel snorted. "You trying to get Gibney to let you shirk off English so you can write about mutant rights issues in video games? Gonna have to work a little harder than that, bud." He glanced over at the TV again.

"Nah, Mister G would for real go for it. If he ever comes back to class. We've had a sub for a couple weeks now." X-Men stuff, Miles presumed, and nothing that they'd share with him. Lame. "So, Tobey Maguire. Not hot for that? Even in that costume?"

"Huh. Weird. I liked subs back in the day. Usually meant you watched a movie and goofed off. Kinda like this." Gabriel lifted his hand off the back of the couch to make a general gesture to their surroundings. "And no Tobey. No no no no. Aside from this movie, dude looks kinda doofy. Give me a Gyllenhaal any day."

"When they start writing your supervillain fanfic, I hope they give you him. Who you texting, anyway? Are you on, what's it called, Kindr?"

"Friends." Gabriel glanced down at his phone, then back up at Miles. "I know people besides you, pal. Real friends, not people who swipe right on Tinder or ping me on Grindr or all those things you're way too young to worry about doing."

"That's fine. This game is supposed to be like a hundred hours. Who has time for that? I'll just stick with my video game lesbian elves for now."