Gabriel & Miles | Birthday Blues

[x-velocidad.livejournal.com]

Miles delivers a letter to Gabriel that's basically the last thing Gabriel expected or wanted on his birthday.

Gabriel sat on the steps of the mansion a cocktail in one hand, and playing with his lighter in the other. For a few minutes, he'd been going through the same motions: Sipping on his drink, occasionally pausing to flick the lighter. Something about his birthday made him feel so listless. There was no significance in another year, and yet, for him, there kind of was. It was a strange feeling.

The sun came out from behind a cloud, and he reached for the sunglasses he'd pushed on top of his head. They weren't there, and he remembered suddenly that he'd left them on the coffee table when he'd thought to make a drink.

Wasn't forgetting things a sign of dementia? Maybe he was getting older than he thought.

It was no easy task to sneak up on someone who could run a mile in just a few seconds, so Miles had to get creative. Luckily, a set of spider powers helped in that endeavor. He'd exited the mansion from one of the rear doors, camo'd up, and made his way to the front where he'd been told that Gabriel was by speed-crawling the exterior wall. He slowed down when his friend came into sight, climbed up high, and then without warning, dropped camo and leaped off. "¡FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS, MI PANA!" he cried dramatically, landing with impressive grace next to Gabriel.

"Jesus Christ!" Gabriel jumped, and his drink jumped with him. Alcohol sloshed out of the cup, falling onto the steps and onto his black jeans, and he let out a curse in Spanish. "Miles," he said after the shock had subsided. "Dude." He reached out and punched the kid in the shoulder, in what he intended to be a sign of brotherly affection. "What the fuck."

Miles burst out laughing at the almost cartoonish reaction, and had to lean on Gabriel to keep himself from doubling over. "Ay, Díos. Tu cara. Deseo . . . deseo que tenga un video para YouTube. Sorry, sorry, but that was really funny." He stood up on his own and looked up at Gabriel, and lost his composure again after a good three seconds.

"Yeah, yeah," Gabriel rolled his eyes, socking Miles again in the shoulder. "Real cute, you fucking hideputa." Smiling in spite of himself, he picked an ice cube off his pants and flicked it at Miles. "Breaking out the next-level Spider-Man shit."

Thanks to the very brief warning ping of his spider-sense, Miles deflected the ice with a swat of his hand. "At least I didn't bring the web-shooters. That stuff doesn't dissolve for an hour. Happy birthday, though. Here." He reached into the messenger bag strapped across his chest and handed Gabriel a small wrapped package, about the size of a paperback.

"Aw, thanks." Gabriel shook the package and grinned. "You shouldn't have." He slid a finger under an edge of the gift wrap, tearing off the paper to reveal a pair of in-ear headphones, clearly designed to be used for running or working out. For as little as Gabriel knew about audio technology, he could tell they were on the nicer side. "Oh man," he looked up, smiling wide, "I needed a new pair of these! This is awesome. Thank you so much."

His reaction brought a big bright smile to Miles's face. "De nada. I figured that it's almost winter soon so you'll probably run around the gym or on a treadmill or something, so these'll help you ignore everyone else who's down there with you. Oh, this came for you in the mail, too." He retrieved a blue envelope that had Gabriel's name and address on it but no return address save a Texas postmark.

"Yeah, thanks, it'll be really great." He took the envelope, inspecting its face. "I probably need to—" The sight of the postmark stopped him short. Texas. El Paso. He reached for the drink and sipped it, all the while staring at the envelope. It was light blue. There was no return address. "I don't... when did this come?"

"It was on the top of the pile of today's mail. Figured I'd give it to you since I was coming out here, anyway. Who's it from? ¿Tu familia?" Miles hazarded a guess. He didn't know much about Gabriel's situation save for the little bit he had shared at Easter, but that was enough to know that it might not have been a good sign.

"I dunno." Gabriel glanced at Miles for a second, then back at the envelope. The sun was once again shining brightly above them, and Gabriel held the envelope up to try and discern its contents. No dice. He had a sinking feeling in his stomach, and he tried to quell it with more alcohol.

"I guess so," he finally answered Miles' question. "Maybe it's a birthday card?" Unsure whether to be excited or confused, Gabriel aimed for a little of both. "Yeah," he said after a few more seconds, exhaling a bit. "I mean, it'd be... but it... maybe it makes sense."

"Well that's . . . a good thing, right? Getting a birthday card. You gonna open it? Or . . . I can go if you want to read it alone."

"Yeah, no, it's..." He looked at Miles, giving him a smile. "It's a good thing." He hardly sounded convinced, and the smile soon faded, leaving a hopeful yet queasy expression that matched the flip-flops his stomach was doing. "Let's see."

He was surprisingly careful opening the envelope, sliding his finger gently under the flap. The sky-blue paper opened, and Gabriel reached in to pull out a piece of stationery he didn't recognize. His heart sank a bit - it wasn't a Hallmark card, to be sure - but he did his best not to let it show.

Cursive letters in blue ink stood out on the cream card-stock (and the surreal nature of receiving any kind of contact from home just made Gabriel feel like the writing was almost popping off the page). Whatever faint hope had been on his face moments earlier was now gone as he read. He flipped the card to the back, where there was nothing written, then flipped it over again.

Then, in an instant, using his powers so he couldn't be stopped, he grabbed the lighter and set the paper on fire, dropping it in the empty ashtray.

"Yo!" Miles cried in shock, taking a step back. "Why'd you do that? What'd it say?"

Gabriel looked at Miles, almost surprised to see him there. For a minute, he'd forgotten he wasn't alone. He stared at the younger boy for a wordless few seconds, then looked back to the flame. His hand went to his drink, which he drained most of before dumping the last few sips and a handful of ice cubes on top of the half-burnt letter.

"Gabriel . . ." Miles briefly hesitated before reaching out to console him. "Is everything okay? I mean, obviously not. Sorry, I don't know why I said that. But what happened? Tell me."

Gabriel shrugged off the touch and kept staring at the smoldering stationery. The envelope was next to him, discarded on the steps, and he picked it up and crumpled it into a ball, which he threw into the now-empty glass. "Look," he finally spat out, turning to Miles, "my family's not like yours, okay? They don't..." He closed his eyes, placing the glass on the stairs. "My grandma's sick," he said after another silent period. Instead of sadness, a thick bitterness hung on every word.

Miles folded his arms over his chest defensively and frowned. This sort of tone seemed wildly out of character for Gabriel. He thought back to a few weeks ago when he told him about Uncle Aaron and Spider-Man, though, and how he himself had acted and how all he'd wanted at the time was someone for him to spill it all to. "I'm sorry. What . . . sick how?"

"I dunno. Sick enough for my sister to feel like she had to track down and write me, which who even knows how she fucking did that. Or why she bothered. And not sick enough for me to go see her unless I repent for my sins, accept Christ into my heart and start fucking women."

Miles blinked, trying to put this together. "Wait, she wrote to you to tell you about your abuela, but said you can't come see her because you're gay?" he asked incredulously. "She wants to keep you away from your sick grandmother for that? The fuck."

"No," Gabriel sighed in exasperation. "She didn't say that, but it's..." He shrugged and looked down at his hands, which he'd been unintentionally unclenching and clenching the same fists.

"Mira," he shifted to face Miles, his expression still lacking any of its characteristic joviality. "My dad kicked me out of the house when I was 16, because he caught me fooling around with a guy. I haven't been home since then. We have no kind of relationship or anything. I'm completely cut off from all of them, and all of that. None of them talk to me. And my grandma's as Catholic as the rest of them, okay? So nobody has to say any of that shit, because we all fucking know what the deal is."

"Well that's dumb," Miles said with all the confidence and surety of a teenager. "I mean, my parents might have a hard time if I was gay, and I know my dad would go crazy if he knew I'm a mutant, but still. They wouldn't, like, pretend I don't exist anymore. How can they do that to you? That's just . . . wrong. Jesus would never approve of that."

Gabriel snorted. "Well, great. That does me a shit ton of good."

The naivete of what he'd said occurred to Miles and he looked away, embarrassed. "Sorry. I don't really know what to say. I wish I could help. You don't deserve that kind of crap."

"Thanks," Gabriel said flatly. "But it's an old story. Can't say I'm all that special. And it's not like I haven't figured out how to be on my own by this point. So fuck 'em."

"On your own in a mansion full of people who appreciate you, and also Spider-Man. How many people get to say they have a legit superhero as a friend, huh?"

Gabriel couldn't help the smirk that appeared on his face. "Legit? Who's legit?"

Miles smiled, too, happy to see that he'd brought Gabriel some bit of mirth after all this. He very gently punched Gabriel's shoulder in jest. "Hey, I have a costume with an insignia. That's as legit as they come!"

"Yeah? Maybe I need one of those," Gabriel looked down at the empty glass. "Giant bottle of whiskey in a pair of running shoes or some shit."

"El Borracho Pronto," Miles suggested. "Hey, you could be my sidekick. I'll teach you the ropes."

"Gee," Gabriel said about as dryly as he could manage, "now there's an offer. Happy birthday to me, indeed."

"You could do a lot worse," Miles ensured him. His expression sobered again. "So, what do you think you're going to do? About your abuela? It's not like they could actually stop you from going down there, if that's what you want . . ."

Gabriel sat quiet, looking away from Miles and chewing on his lip for bit. "I dunno," he finally responded. "I really don't. Like," he looked back up, "I know she's my fucking abuela, but I don't want to go back there. And I know they don't want me there." His eyes went to the ashtray, where the remains of the letter were now ash. "So, I dunno."

"Well, whatever you do decide, if you need anything, you know, let me know. If I can help."

"Yeah," Gabriel gave Miles a small smile, "thanks." He shifted a bit and scratched the back of his neck. "But I think this is a bigger problem than Spider-Man can solve."