Gabriel and Roxy

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Gabriel and Roxy meet in the sunroom and have a conversation about Gabriel's work and about being homosexual mutants. Gabe is very sweet. (Ssh! Tell no one!)

The enthusiam Roxy had felt when she'd learned she could finally control her powers enough to allow her to go to Bayville had evaporated after only a few days thanks to the amount of homework she had. It was especially difficult to concentrate on math and chemistry when the sun was shining and spring was in the air.

She'd taken her schoolwork to the sunroom, but she also had her guitar, and was doing more songwriting than studying. Her algebra notes were now covered in music bars as well as phrases, lines of poetry and random words, outlined and underlined and accentuated with stars and circles. Tongue poking out between her lips, she strummed a cord and wrote something down in her notes, then went back to the chord and strummed a little.

And then realized she was strumming the opening lines to The Who's Pinball Wizard. Damn. "Oh well," she muttered to herself, playing happily.

"Tommy? Really?" Gabriel stood at the entrance to the sun room, a bottle of Arizona iced tea and his iPod in hand. He stepped toward a backlit Roxy, squinting to see just who was playing. Upon recognizing her, his smirk faded into a smile. "Ah, well, okay. Guess that's how you rebel against a hip-hop dynasty."

"Rebel?" Roxy grinned at Gabriel and continued strumming the song. "Who do you think introduced me to it? My dad loves The Who. Not as much as he loves Chuck Berry or Bob Marley, but, y'know." She shrugged and set the guitar aside. "I don't think we've met yet? I'm Roxy. But I guess you already knew that?" She held out her hand.

"I did. I enjoy the trashier sides of the Internet." He shook her hand. "Gabriel. Welcome, I guess. Although you've been here for a while, so maybe not." Gabriel glanced around, then grabbed a seat in a nearby chair.

"I guess if we've never met it still works," Roxy told him encouragingly, picking up her guitar again. "The internet can be great for trash, yeah. Just so long as you don't believe everything you read on there, of course," she added pointedly. "So how come we're just meeting now even though I've been here for a while?"

"I work nights." Gabriel shrugged. He wanted to ask her more about the rumors, but if anyone respected a subject change, it was him. "So I get in nocturnal ruts. When I'm up and about, the homework-and-high-school crowd is usually busy or asleep." Or at least they were easy to actively avoid when Gabriel wanted to smoke up and stay away.

"You'd be surprised." He twisted the cap off his iced tea. "Mansion this big makes it easy to not see people who live down the hall."

"That's actually not that surprising," Roxy agreed with a grin. "This place is like a city of its own. I mean, I've been in some pretty big houses, but wow. This one is uber-swank even by celebrity standards. So where do you work if you work nights? Hospital? McDonalds?" Those were the only things she could think of open nights. Well, except the obvious. "Ooo! Male escort?"

"Ha. No." Not now, not ever - that was too fancy a term, anyway. "Bartender downtown. A pretty good one, I'm told. Even by celebrity standards."

"Ooo! Do you get a lot of celebrities at your bar?" Roxy asked excitedly.

"Uh, no." Gabriel raised an eyebrow and smirked again. "I was – never mind." He waved her off and took a healthy sip from his bottle. "Some models come in sometimes. They're kind of whatever."

"Ugh, yeah. Models." Roxy rolled her eyes. "I'm sure there are some not-high-maintenance ones out there, but I've never met any. It diminishes the hotness, y'know? What's your favourite drink to make?"

"Hmmm." Gabriel chewed his lip as he considered that. "I dunno. I mean, I hate making mojitos, and people on dates are always sending Manhattans back. I get impressed when people order things like old fashioneds or Negronis or whatever, I guess." He shrugged and looked down at his hands. "I'm not, like, a mixologist, you know? Not one of those people who can wax poetic about the virtues of craft cocktails. Mostly just pouring G&Ts for thirsty lushes."

"What's a Negroni?" Roxy asked curiously. "Sounds kinda racist," she smirked.

Gabriel snorted. "Might be. Explains all the rich white people who order them. It's gin, Campari and vermouth. Booze, booze and more booze. But, you know. Classy.'

"What's campari? And vermouth?" Roxy asked, still confused. "'Though I guess it would be hard to explain with words," she conceded. "I always think it's weird when people try to explain tastes. And we probably don't have any here for me to actually taste." Not any she could get away with drinking in the sunroom, anyway. "Maybe I'll have to use my image inducer and fake ID to come visit and have you serve me some," she mused, eyebrow raised thoughtfully but face serious, so it was unclear whether she was joking or not.

"Maybe." Gabriel shrugged. If she'd intended to get a slight rise out of him, she'd picked a bad mark. Given both his age and his fake IDs, he was hardly going to criticize. "Image inducer's a must. If a gaggle of gays spotted you walking in? Hoo, girl. Place might explode. Few drag queens might ask you for tips."

Roxy chuckled. She liked this guy. He wasn't as uptight as some of the other people around here seemed to be. "Really?! You think so? I mean, yeah, that happened to me a couple times when I went with my 'rents to awards shows last year, after the media started speculating on whether I was gay. But the way you put it it kinda makes me sound like some sort of gay icon. Which I love," she assured him. "I mean, don't get me wrong. Judy and Cher are, like, idols of mine. Hence the in disbelief that I'm in the same company. Are you gay too?" she asked unabashedly.

"Oh, uh, yeah." Gabriel nodded. Too, which meant she was, which meant the rumors were true. That settled that. He hadn't planned on bringing it up (enough of his personal baggage was public knowledge, at least within the mansion, that he didn't find it fair to bring up someone else's), but still, it was nice to know.

"And, uh, not to, like, ruin your dreams, but the reaction's mostly about the gossip. And the tips would be about your mom. She's kind of a..." He shrugged. Gay icon sounded trite, and he figured Roxy knew what he meant. "You know. I'm sure you'll get there one day, though, if that's what you want. You already sparkle, right? That's kind of a prerequisite."

Roxy chuckled some more. "It totally is, yeah. And I don't think 'gay icon' is gonna be one of my career aspirations, specifically," she clarified, "but if it happens, I won't be pissed off about it, y'know? I can't decide if I want to dance on Broadway or do the whole Carole King thing. But sometimes I wonder if neither of those can happen now that I'm a mutant." She wrinkled her nose distastefully, strumming a few chords of 'A Change Is Gonna Come' to distract herself. "Did you always want to be a bartender? Or did being a mutant ruin your childhood dreams like it'll probably ruin mine?"

"No and no." Gabriel shrugged, trying his best not to show how much questions about his childhood bothered him. "When I was younger, I wanted to be a baseball player. So do lots of kids, and there are only, like... 800 of them. The odds weren't great."

"Kinda like being on Broadway," Roxy nodded. "So can I ask you a weird question? A... a 'maybe kind of rude but I'm dying to know and I've never been able to ask anyone before' question?"

"Oh, uh..." Gabriel scratched the back of his neck. "Yeah. Sure."

Roxy scrunched up her face nervously and took a deep breath. "Do you think it's harder right now to be a mutant, or to be gay? Like, if you had to put a sign on your head that said one of them, which one would you pick?"

"Oh." Gabriel looked down at his hands, regretting letting her ask that question. "I think," he finally said after a few seconds, speaking slowly at first, "that it's not really, like, one is harder than the other. They're both just... different. But really similar." He looked up at her with a shrug. "I guess if you put a gun to my head, I'd say that generally, most people in the world, easier to be gay. But I dunno. I'm not famous, and my power hides easily. Your mileage may vary."

"Mine's hiding better these days," Roxy replied, proud of the fact. "It's just my face that doesn't hide, unless I wear that image inducer thing. Which is kinda cool," she shrugged. "With it, I can be whoever I want. But that's kinda my problem. Do I wanna be someone gay? Stay, I dunno, truer to my real self or whatever?" She wasn't expecting Gabriel to have an answer for her, but it helped to say what had been bothering her out loud.

"Well..." He started speaking in a tone so flat it surprised him. "At least you get to decide that now. Lots of people don't get that choice." He shrugged. At this point, he was kind of looking past her rather than at her. "Take advantage of it."

Roxy narrowed her eyes at him, unsure about what he meant. "That sounds like you're telling me to not make my alter ego gay."

"Uh, no." Gabriel snorted. "I'm not telling you to do anything. Just, like..." He shrugged. "You're a kid. You're in a pretty supportive place. Figure out who you are."

"Okay," Roxy laughed, "that sounds better. I like that. That sounds like a challenge. And I accept."