xp_logs | Gabriel and Angel || Lunch and Reconciling

Angel and Gabriel try and talk. It goes better.

Angel made her way down the hall with the heavy bag of food swinging in her hand. She was a woman on a mission today. She stopped in front of the door, considering for a moment...

Then shrugged and opened it, letting herself in. "Rise and shine Gabriel, I come bearing food."

A groan emanated from the couch, where Gabriel was lying with a pillow both supporting and covering his head. Another grunt followed, and then a yawn, as Gabriel stretched and tossed the top pillow aside. "What time is it?" He scooted back, squinting as he sat up against the arm at the couch.

"Noon!" Angel piped happily, putting the food on the table and going to his kitchen to get plates. "Do you like forks or chopsticks?"

"Fork if it's Thai, chopsticks if it's anything else." He sat up, leaning against the arm of the couch. With a half-yawn, he turned his head to survey the room. "How's my bed head? Or, couch head, I guess."

Angel returned with a couple forks, waving one in Gabriel's direction. "It's great. Add a little hair gel and you can totally sell it as the accidental-on-purpose-I'm-a-rebel-who-doesn't-care look."

"Great," Gabriel snorted. His neck was slightly sore, and he wished for a second he'd made it to his bed. He reached for a half-empty glass on the coffee table, then stopped with his arm half-extended. "Hey." He looked at her, eyebrow raised. "This is a surprise thing, right? We didn't have plans?"

"Nope." Angel flopped back in an arm chair, handing the fork over. "Surprise thing. Good surprise thing even. Well, good surprise thing if you consider my company good which may be debatable. But I figured bringing food along would help."

"Gotcha." Gabriel just nodded. He lifted the glass off the table and sniffed it. Finding nothing objectionable, he took a sip.

Angel set to work with doling out the food, twirling her fork absently between her fingers when she was done. "So, honesty hour. Scale of one to ten how much do you hate me? If you say ten you can have all the food and I'll leave."

Gabriel looked at his glass with a laser-like focus. "I don't hate you." He looked over at her. "Who said anything about hating you?"

"No one. But I'm also not stupid." Angel considered her options for a minute before taking a bite of food and popping it in her mouth. "You're avoiding me."

"Not true," Gabriel objected. He traded the glass in his hand for a plate and a fork. "You're busy with your merry band of teens. I've got the bar and the whole mutant spy thing. You're a daywalker. I'm a vampire." He pushed around some pad Thai noodles. "And you've got a boyfriend to spend your free time with," he added. "So."

"Sure." Another bite of food, and she shrugged. "I spend amazingly little time with him, actually, but ya know, not really here to talk about that."

Gabriel sighed. "What do you want me to say?" He looked up and over at her. "Because we had this conversation before and, as I remember, it didn't end up going that well. Not for me, anyway."

"Wasn't exactly amazing for me either," Angel pointed out. "And I don't wanna have this conversation either, but I'd also really like to not lose you as a friend. Believe it or not you're important to me."

"Yeah," Gabriel said somewhat wearily. He was still idly pushing food around the plate. "I like you too, but that doesn't mean I'm having an easy time with this. It sort of sucks."

"I know it does," Angel said quietly. "And I've been trying to give you space. But I don't wanna give you so much space that in three months you're sticking needles in a voodoo doll that looks suspiciously like me and I'm down in the med lab with mysterious arm pains because I don't doubt one of the magic kids would make that shit real."

"Oh." Gabriel said, a little realization dawning over him. "So this is both a peace offering and an airing of the grievances? Got it."

"Do you have a grievance you wanna air? Seriously, this is probably the only time I'll let you insult me however you want without threatening to set you on fire."

Gabriel shrugged and took a bite of his pad Thai. He looked at her and took a sip of water. "Well," he shrugged again. "If we're being honest, I'm kind of pissed you wouldn't let me be pissed about this when you told me, and that you seemed pretty fucking matter-of-fact about something then made me feel like a crazy person when I treated it like a big fucking deal." He used his fingers to grab a piece of chicken from his plate. "So."

Angel nodded silently, popping another bite of food into her mouth. "I didn't handle it right," she said quietly. "I knew you were gonna be mad and I got myself all worked up in my head and just..." She threw her hands about, waving her fork wildly. "Not an excuse, and I'm really sorry."

"Yeah," Gabriel said somewhat flatly. "I know. Just, like," he waved the hand with the fork somewhat idly. "I know I've got too many issues with all this 'brave new world' stuff. And, like, you've got this thing and it's great, I'm sure, and I'm happy for you. But I should be allowed to feel, like, something about it and not be cut off from the one person I can actually talk to about all this shit."

"You're not cut off from me," Angel said quietly. "Not if you don't want to be. You're allowed to feel, and if you want to feel at me then go ahead. Drag me out of bed at three in the morning to feel if you have to."

"Hasn't felt like I could."

"Yeah...that's my fault too." She wasn't saying bitterly - just like it was matter of fact. Because it was. The sky was blue, grass was green, and Angel had been a bad friend. "But you can and I'll hire a plane to write it in the sky to let you know if I have to. Or I could just get whatever they use for that and attach it to the winged dude."

"Yep," Gabriel grinned. "Do that. And then press whatever button would make him explode." He shook his head, still smiling, as he took another sip from his glass. Then he sighed, putting his plate on the coffee table and shifting to look at her. "So," he said a little hesitantly, "things are — I mean, with you two. Things are... good?" He couldn't look thrilled to be asking the question; it was clear this was still a little awkward and uncomfortable. But it was as close to a peace offering as she was going to get.

Angel laughed at that. "I think I might get him in trouble if I blow him up." Her grin faded into something a bit gentler though. "It's good, but we don't have to talk about that if you don't want to. Honestly I won't be offended if you make it a rule that that's off limits."

Gabriel didn't bother trying not to look a little relieved. "I don't — I mean, like, if you want to talk about him, you can talk about him." He shifted a bit. "Like, it's part of your life."

"Yeah but there are some things that don't need to be talked about." Angel waved a hand, grinning. "This can be on the list with 'time of the month stuff that no one needs to actually hear about.'"

"Oh, well, you know." Gabriel waved a hand. "I'm happy to talk about that too," he said unconvincingly, "you've just never asked." A beat. "And I can usually tell anyway."

Angel snorted and rolled her eyes, unconvinced. "Yeah, right. Come on, let's talk about something more interesting. Like your life."

"Oh, well," Gabriel shrugged, a hint of a smile on his lips. "I mean, whatever, you know me. Running, drinking, smoking, fucking. And spying, I guess. Still not used to that."

"I'm guessing it's not as great as James Bond makes it seem," Angel said thoughtfully. "Although what would you do with beautiful women throwing themselves at you, anyways?"

"Steal their jewelry," Gabriel cracked back. "Not that it matters. I'm mostly an errand boy. And I'm kinda-sorta part-time at that, so, it's more like, lackey-in-training. But a decently paid lackey-in-training."

"You're an apprentice spy! That sounds like an awesome movie." Angel sang what she thought would be an appropriate intro song for an apprentice spy movie - a very mixed up version of the James Bond theme.

"Oh yeah," Gabriel rolled his eyes. "Enter Gabriel Cohuelo, played by younger Antonio Banderas type. He carries a stack of mail that needs to be delivered, but each envelope is addressed in code."

"I would watch it," Angel said seriously. "If only to be able to turn to the person next to me and say 'I know the dude this is based on.'"

"And he really is this much of a high-functioning alcoholic."

"I mean I was gonna go with 'handsome,' but both work."

"Yes, well," Gabriel made a show of preening. "Rest assured, they'll whitewash and straightwash me, so you've got a shot at being the love interest in this screenplay." He speared a scallion on his fork, an eyebrow raised. "Which would bring this multiuniversal sex quadrangle to a whole new level of fun."

"Puh-leeze." Angel rolled her eyes. "If they do that I'm boycotting the hell out of this movie. I don't want to exist in a universe where I don't have my gay best friend. Even if it's just a fictional movie universe."

Gabriel smirked but didn't say anything, instead popping his fork into his mouth and taking a bite. "Well," he said, giving her a smile, "that's good to know."