Gabriel & Maya | Late-Night Chat

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Gabriel and Maya have a late-night heart to heart.

When Maya couldn’t sleep, which wasn’t as regularly as you might think given her history, she liked to hang out on the main stairs in the dark and scare the crap out of the adults getting home late from various places. Tonight it seemed, she’d have the pleasure of possibly giving Gabriel a fright. She crouched on the bottom step of the stairs, quiet as a church mouse, and waited for him to see her.

It was late. Later than Gabriel had expected to be coming home, since working a weeknight in the fall generally meant he could duck out early. He'd never have done that in the past, when sacrificing tips could scarcely be afforded. But now bartending was less of a financial necessity and more of an insistent habit. It was a job independent of the mansion and its inhabitants, and it kept him from sitting still. But Gabriel didn't think he'd last much longer. Even for someone who could squeeze tasks into minutes, combining two jobs with the trip to the city was starting to wear on him.

At least the tips were nice. Making his way toward the stairs, he pulled his wallet out of the back pocket of his black jeans and started counting cash. As he approached the steps, he looked up for a second and practically jumped.

"Oh fucking—" he started, his heart pounding. "What the actual hell?"

Maya was too busy cackling to herself to answer him right away, flapping her hand at him in a ‘just a minute’ gesture before finally getting herself under control.

“Aren’t you meant to be some kind of super spy now?”

"Aren't you meant to be asleep now?" Gabriel raised an eyebrow as he crossed his arms. "I mean, seriously, this is the witching hour. Maybe literally, here."

“Sure, if I could sleep,” Maya noted, pulling her knees up to rest her chin on as she gave Gabriel an entirely innocent look. “I was just heading to the kitchen to make myself some nutritious hot milk and cookies.”

"Oh please," Gabriel snorted. "Cut the act, Olsen twin. It's me." His arms dropped down to his sides, and he slipped the wallet back in his pockets. "Come on. I could use a snack anyway."

“Olsen twin, really?” Maya asked, standing up to head after him toward the kitchen. “I’m worth at least a Christina Ricci, adorable, precocious and just a hint of bad ass.”

"Uh huh." Gabriel smiled ever-so-slightly. "More like that girl from The Ring," he teased her. "Creepy, scary, and just a hint of pain in the ass."

"I promise not to kill you in seven days," Maya said with an amused look. "But only if you make me a hot chocolate."

"Okay, one, don't make promises like that around here, and two, how have you even seen that movie? You're, like, 12." He knew she wasn't, but still.

"But yeah, fine. Deal." As they entered the kitchen, Gabriel removed his leather jacket and tossed it on the nearest chair. "You hungry? I can throw in a grilled cheese too."

"You'd be surprised what you can get away with watching when people think you're asleep."

While Maya normally took such things as 'bed time' seriously, especially since Wade was not above calling her father if she misbehaved too badly, there had been nights when traditional horror movies were actually less scary then her dreams.

"Grilled cheese sounds good, you gonna do fancy?"

"Ick, no." Gabriel wrinkled his nose. "You don't get fancy this late. Gotta stick to the basics. Besides," he added as he headed to the fridge, "that's what makes things, like, classic. Comfort food. Grab me some bread."

“That’s my Grandmother’s fry bread,” Maya replied wistfully as she grabbed some fresh bread from one of the cupboards and handed it over. “So what else do you consider classic?”

"I dunno," Gabriel shrugged as he rummaged around in the chaos of the mansion's fridge. "Mac and cheese? Mashed potatoes." He grabbed the butter and cheese and rested them in the crook of his arm. "I'm tejano. Not like I grew up eating chicken pot pie or, like, fucking, meatloaf or whatever." He grabbed the milk, took two steps back and nudged the fridge door shut with his hips.

"My Mom was Latinx," Maya mentioned, almost as an aside as she sat on one of the stools around the island bench. "Not that that had much to do with my childhood, all the family I knew were Native. Dad says I take my looks from her though."

Gabriel glanced over at Maya for a few seconds, then just shrugged and went to retrieve a pan. "You miss 'em? Can't be easy."

"Like I'm missing part of my soul," Maya admitted with a sigh. "Sometimes it feels like I'm never going to see them again, and skype chat just doesn't cut it. I miss the little things, you know? Never thought I'd miss ke'éehe giving me trouble for sleeping in on a school day."

Gabriel, looking through cabinets, made a vague noise that was somewhere between sympathy and assent. "Yeah," he added on his way back to the stove. It had been a long time since he'd felt the same way about his family, but he got it. "You gonna go see them any time soon? Holidays or whatever? I bet Wade would find a way to make it happen."

"He and Dad could, yeah," Maya agreed but she rested her chin in her hands as she watched him move around, a conflicted look crossing her face. "But the more times they come out of hiding, the more likely they'll get tagged by the guys after my Dad."

"Hm." Gabriel looked up from the bread he was buttering. "Well, that sucks." It was little comfort, he knew. "But, honestly, people here are crafty. They might be able to find a way." He shrugged and went back to the culinary task at hand. "I dunno."

“Maybe, but I’m not gonna ask them to,” Maya replied, her tone tense as she looked away, pushing her hair away from her shoulders as something to do. “They’d both go to stupid lengths if I asked them to, which is stupid and dangerous and Marie-Ange would hate me even more if I got her boyfriend killed cause he was being all Gryffindor noble. I mean, Wade doesn’t even like me, at least, I don’t think he does.”

"Wade is — well, who knows? He might not," Gabriel admitted with a shrug. He threw a pat of butter in the pan and turned on the stove. "But he takes being responsible for you seriously, so there's that, and I don't think he wants you to be totally miserable and unhappy." He lifted his eyes from the mise-en-place and looked at her, a sly smile on his face. "Which is a fool's errand, honestly."

"Jerkface," Maya responded, her lips twitching upwards before she buried her head in her arms and made a groaning sound. "N'argh. You're not meant to be likable. You're meant to be an asshole so I can hate you and not get attached."

Gabriel laughed. "Sorry, kid. This is my move. Roguish charm is what I was told once. I think it was a compliment." He drummed his fingers idly on the counter while he waited for the butter to melt. Some things, unfortunately, couldn't be sped up. "I'm sure you can find a way to hate me anyway. Isn't that kinda your move?"

"Shows what you know," Maya responded, poking out her tongue defiantly. So adult. Such maturity. Wow! "I am the very soul of agreeability, kindness and unicorn farts. Why, just the other day I heard a teacher at my school singing my praises for being such an excellent student, a true inspiration to all!"

"I'm sure." Gabriel's tone conveyed just how unlikely he found that. Little bubbles had formed in the butter, and so he slid their sandwiches into the pan. There were few things more satisfying than the sizzle that came when they made contact. "Glad to hear that you're, you know." He waved a hand before turning to grab her cocoa. "Adjusting."

“I believe the term you’re looking for is ‘resigned to my fate’,” Maya said, resting her chin on her hands. “I mean, if I ‘have’ to be here, why make it more difficult for myself by being an ass to everyone I meet? Well, apart from the people who really, really deserve it, like QQ.”

"Quentin's not so bad," Gabriel said in an obviously half-hearted defense, because, frankly, Quentin was kind of an ass. That was part of his appeal, in so much as Gabriel knew he could cut through it. "And that advice sounds really familiar." He stood on his tiptoes to reach a bag of marshmallows that was almost hidden on a shelf. "Shockingly familiar, actually."

“You do not get to take credit for my change of heart,” Maya said, sticking her tongue out at him again to make her opinion known. “You’ll be all smug and I’ll have to thump you one and Marie-Ange will get scary with me again, although Wade might just ground me and that would suck way worse. Quentin is an asshole who doesn’t know how to relate to anyone who isn’t a trumped up gerbil aka, whatever the heck Fuckwad is or having sex with him.”

Gabriel made an imprecise noise, somewhere between a snort and laugh. "Well," he shrugged, "that's not entirely true. He's got more depth than he lets on. But that's neither here nor there. Flip that grilled cheese for me, will you?"

“He ‘showed’ me a bit of what happened to him,” Maya slipped out of the seat she’d been taking up and moved to flip the sandwich, giving it a deep sniff as she did and making an mmm noise. “I get why he’s an asshole, but I’m not sure I want to hang on long enough to get past all the scar tissue. Not like I don’t understand the compulsion to push people away, but I’m also not completely desperate to hang around a guy who thinks telling me I’m crazy is a’okay.”

"So don't." He handed her a finished cocoa in thanks, courtesy of the microwave, then tossed her the bag of marshmallows. "Plenty of other people here. It's stunningly easily ignore people who bother you. Or avoid them or whatever." He paused, considering. "Well, okay, I've got super-speed, so that makes it easier, but still. Big mansion."

“I haven’t,” Maya noted, sitting back down with her cocoa and adding a copious amount of marshmallow. “Least, not since he told me I was crazy, which kinda sucked cause I was trying to show him I got the way I am.”

Gabriel shrugged. "You can't win everyone over." It was such a reasonable thing to say, which sort of surprised him, because since when was he the reasonable one?"

“I suppose,” Maya said, taking a sip of her cocoa as she mulled that over. “Although, I won you over, didn’t I?”

"Eh," Gabriel shrugged again, playing coy as he slid the grilled cheese onto a plate. "Jury's still out."