Template:Featured Articles/14-2024
"Stop it," Gabriel frowned. "It's not a win." He couldn't believe she would be pretending otherwise. "You got shot, and you needed days to recover. And..." He didn't even want to have to say it, and he was starting to get annoyed that she was going to make him. “After the man I think of as an uncle was just lucid enough to shoot me in the foot.” Maya said it matter of factly, the snap of the words harsh as she picked up her can of soda and looked down at the label. “He didn’t kill me, Gabe. He was crazy enough to, he tried to kill Clarice. But not me. Me he recognised. Why do you think that’s a loss?” "Because he's a fucking lunatic who fucking shot you!" He would not, ordinarily, have been so furious in front of her. Not because he thought she needed to see him maintain composure — they knew each other too well at this point — but because he didn't like to lose it in front of anyone. "That's not — it's not okay, Maya. Do you know how lucky you were? You don't think he and Clarice were close too? I mean, what the actual fuck!" Maya launched the can of soda at his head with a furious scream, on her feet before she remembered and then collapsing downward as she got tangled in pillow, chair and the sheer agony of having put weight on a gunshot wound that wasn’t ready for it. Gabriel, grateful for his powers, caught the can. He wordlessly went to her bathroom, pulled a bottle of over-the-counter painkillers from the medicine cabinet and tossed it in her direction before returning to his seat. Maya swore viciously in Spanish, calling Gabriel’s parentage into question and telling him exactly what he could do with his painkillers as she struggled back up into her chair and settled in again. She took several deep breaths, and then glared. “What good does it do, mi hermano? I can’t do anything about it.” "No," Gabriel acknowledged. "You can't." He refused to break eye contact with her. "But don't pretend it's fine. It's not." He kept calm, because he'd already lost his cool once, and it clearly hadn't served him. "You're not supposed to be fine. None of this is fine. And you're not stronger for pretending it is." “Speaking from personal experience?” Maya dry swallowed both pills and sat back into her chair, allowing the headrest to cradle her suddenly exhausted self. “Why is it that people only offer advice when it’s someone else doing the same thing they were just doing not months ago, like nobody will call them on their bullshit.” He bristled slightly at that, but he refused to let it fluster him. He'd been dealing with Maya for years; he knew how she operated, and he knew she wanted to get a rise out of him. "There's so much you think you know," he said after a second. "But yes, I am speaking from personal experience, actually." He wanted to tell her that he had been trying to deal with his shit, recently. But that would mean explaining just what his shit is, and he didn't owe her anything. But he'd give her something small. "M-Day was one of the five worst days of my life," he said, standing and moving to the kitchen, because he refused to look at her while he told her this. "And I would probably be dead by now if Wade had not dragged me back here and forced me to deal with my shit instead of drinking myself to death." He opened the fridge, peering inside. "I was barely holding it together. You think I'm a mess now? You have no idea." “I don’t.” It was tired, and sad but it was honest. It was a concession. She stared into the middle distance, wondering when she’d ever felt more tired. “You leave all the time. You don’t talk to me, except about easy things. It makes me crazy. You want me to say things but you never say them either. Don’t I get to care too?” |
