In which Prom is discussed Who: Gabriel and Rose What: Talking about grief, prom, and arson Where: Gabriel's room When: Wednesday, April 25, evening (talk about cutting it close!) Rating: SFW, though some bad words.
Gabriel didn't know how things had ended up this way, but somehow, Rose Morgan had made his room her second home. She came by all the time now, especially when he was feeling under the weather, with music and videos, trying to cheer him up. It was an exercise in futility, really, but at the same time, Gabriel hated that he found himself looking forward to her company. If he looked forward to it, she could disappoint him.
Nevertheless, she was here now, sprawled across his bed (across him), her laptop propped up in front of them as they watched a movie that she had insisted he couldn't go another day without seeing. There were zombies in it, and the world might be ending. Gabriel didn't bother trying to follow the plotline. He watched the screen distractedly as the credits started to roll, his fingers idly tracing up and down Rose's arm.
"Fuckin' told you." Rose stretched an arm out without moving from her comfortable lounging position across his legs, just about managing to shut her laptop with her outstretched fingertips. "Asian movies do psychological horror better but there is nobody like the British for post apocalyptic shit. Am I always right or am I always fucking right?"
"You're right," Gabriel agreed, though not because he had any real opinion on the matter himself. He hadn't minded the movie. Horror didn't really horrify him all that much. "Though I don't think that was a movie that is necessarily required viewing for life."
Rose made a dismissive noise in the back of her throat and rolled over to look up at him. "Dude. /Every/ awesome movie is required viewing for life."
"I dare say that's a bit excessive," Gabriel said, just to be contrary. It was fun to rile Rose up a bit. "Not everyone agrees on what's an awesome movie, anyway."
She rolled her eyes, peeling herself off his lap. "Yeah. So you watch all the movies you can get your hands on, problem fucking eliminated." Her grin was a tiny bit on the ironical side.
"What a boring life that would be," Gabriel said. "Just watching movies? Nothing else?"
"Listening to all the music, reading all the books, playing all the games, doing all the things. How else do you know what's awesome?"
"But what's the point of knowing what's awesome if you never do anything but research what's awesome?" Gabriel raised an eyebrow as he countered Rose's question.
"Sorry." Rose shoved his shoulder lightly. "Are you seriously asking me 'what's the point in spending your life discovering awesome things'? Dude, life isn't a fucking race to the finish. Ironic coming from me, I know."
Gabriel gave a small eyeroll, shoving her back just as gently. "Well, one would think that after discovering awesome things, you'd want to go out and meet other people to share those awesome things with."
"Holy crap." She feigned utter shock. "Did Gabriel fucking Holden just tell me to go meet other people and share with them? When...when did I fall through the dimensional portal to opposite land?"
Gabriel gave Rose another nudge. "Even I go out and interact with people, you know. What do you think dance class is for?"
Rose shrugged. "Dancing? Tripping over your own feet and looking like a retard, if you're me?"
"You can dance," Gabriel said, giving a little shake of his head. "You must be able to."
"I can headbang," she offered
"You can dance," Gabriel said. "What did you do last year, at prom?"
She shrugged, eyes turning towards the ceiling absently as she called up bittersweet memories of tartan and laughter and ironic disco dancing on sore feet. "Uh. Did the world's best John Travolta Having A Stroke impersonation?"
Gabriel just gave Rose a sideways look. "I doubt that. You have to be able to dance; you're very musical."
"Please. I said. I can headbang."
"You can dance," Gabriel repeated. "You should be able to, at least. What if you get voted Prom Queen this year?"
"Wait, Gabriel. How did we get onto me being Prom Queen? Who says I'm even going to prom?"
"You were Prom Princess last year," Gabriel pointed out. "Isn't that the logical progression? It helps that you're the only female student at Dalton. Regardless of whether or not you go, people are probably voting for you now."
"Yeah. I have no competition. I also have no interest. Prom royalty is for people who give a fuck about being popular. Don't care if I'm Prom Queen, I probably won't go and I sure as hell am not gonna learn to dance just for that shit." She picked at the flaky black polish on her nails. "Why bother? I went last year because I wanted to spend time with Ian and to have fun, but lately I suck balls at having fun and all my friends have other people to go with."
"Maybe you should go," Gabriel said, his eyes falling to where she was picking at her nails. That wasn't exactly "don't care" behavior, he didn't think. "Try to have fun. That's part of getting better. And it's an excuse to wear one of those crazy dresses you love so much."
"Seriously, man. Prom is so not my fucking scene. And who the fuck needs an excuse?" She tipped her head at him and managed a fairly convincing grin. "If I wanna get back into having fun, I'll collect whatever friends don't mind losing their hearing for a couple of days and drag them along to the next gig I go to. If I go to prom to sit on my own with a crazy dress and the ghosts of when I was fun to be around, I am not gonna have fun, I'm gonna be fucking miserable."
Gabriel just raised an eyebrow, shook his head, and tapped Rose's lips with one finger. "Nice try, but it's not in your eyes. When was the last time you did something in a large group?"
"Last time I went to class," she said, deliberately flippant.
"Last time you did something for entertainment in a group?"
"Drama club." Although in honesty she hadn't been there for weeks. She was still struggling to drag herself out when she didn't have to be, even though she'd been feeling a slight lessening of the crushing patheticness.
"Drama club," Gabriel repeated. "I thought you'd been skipping drama."
She shrugged, trying to hide her irritation. How was this even his business? "I go sometimes. Why are you pushing this?"
"Because you need to get out more," Gabriel said. "You're starting to reconnect with the world, and sitting in here, watching videos with me, isn't going to help this stage of your recovery."
"Who made you my fucking therapist?" Rose shifted away from him, scowling. "If I don't want to spend time in large groups of people, why the fuck should I?
"Rose..." Gabriel looked over at her, drawing a leg up to lean against his knee. "Would you go if I did?"
She met his eyes, expression unreadable. "Why?"
"You know why I think you should go," Gabriel said. "But if you don't want to go because you have no friends to go with, I can go with you. It's not like I have a boyfriend to take to prom either."
"Yeah. Sure. So my dancing can look even worse in comparison."
"There are many who would say that the purpose for the man in a couple's dance is to make the woman look even better by comparison," Gabriel said.
She snorted. "Uh-huh. Good fucking luck with that."
Gabriel smiled, leaning over to brush his fingers over Rose's shoulder. "Come to prom with me? You can wear a dress, I'll wear a suit, and you'll enjoy yourself."
It was tempting. She liked Gabriel. She liked spending time with him, she liked that he didn't have the same daunting effect on her as most people had lately, she liked that he actually quite liked her. Going to prom would make less people worry about her isolation. If she didn't go, people would notice, and they would bug her about it.
But she didn't want to enjoy herself. She didn't want to go to prom among all the people who she'd practically blanked all year, and although it was hard to put into words, she didn't want to paint over the memory of prom with Ian with a different prom with someone else.
She blustered to cover her confusion, giving Gabriel a slightly sardonic smile. "You asking me out, Holden?"
"Yes, I suppose I am," Gabriel said, pursing his lips a little as he thought about it. "Asking you to go out to prom and offering to accompany to you..."
"I don't get it. You want me to hang out with people, fine, why you got to throw me in the deep end?" She folded her arms on her knees, watching him intently. "And why do you even care? My mental health is none of your business, I thought misery loved company."
"Because there is no shallow end?" Gabriel kept his fingers brushing Rose's shoulder as he leaned more heavily against his leg, just watching her. "Our miseries are different, Rose. Yours is..." Fixable. Temporary. He dropped that line of reasoning and pursued a different tactic. "Did you enjoy yourself last year?"
"Last year I wasn't the same person I am this year. Last year was a totally fucking different situation." Last year she'd been about the happiet she'd ever been, or so it seemed in hindsight. Things had been far from perfect, but she'd had Ian and she'd had her friends around her and she'd had nothing to hide.
"But did you enjoy yourself?"
"Sure. It was goofy and fun."
"There you go, then," Gabriel said, a slight bit of satisfaction in his face now. "Prom was a good night. A 'night to remember.' And you should remember it, remember the fun you had, and celebrate that."
"I remember it. Doesn't mean I have to repeat it."
"All right," Gabriel said. "So we won't go."
"You can go," she protested. "And I didn't say I wouldn't go. Just that I wasn't sure I would."
"Well, why would I go on my own?" Gabriel asked.
"Why not?"
Gabriel leveled a flat look at Rose. "I only have one friend."
"No offence, man, but that is depressing. And depressingly familiar." Rose gnawed on her lip for a moment, thinking. "Ok. Sure. Why the fuck not? Let's do this shit."
Gabriel did smile at that, an expression that lasted long enough to actually be visible. "All right then. I suppose... I'll pick you up on Saturday?"
"Sounds like a plan," Rose agreed, her reluctance hardly showing in her voice at all. "And about the fact I dance like an electrocuted frog, that gonna be a problem?"
"Not at all," Gabriel said. "Is that going to be a problem for you?"
"Never has been before."
"Then I don't see any problems." Gabriel frowned a little now, thinking. "Is it customary to go to dinner first?"
"Fuck knows," Rose shrugged. "I really could not give a shit."
"Let me know if you do later," Gabriel said. "If you're going to be royalty, you get to call the shots."
"Sure, man. I'm gonna keep bugging you every day anyway, same as ever. I'll keep you posted."
"I'll look forward to it," Gabriel said before he realized what he said. Something to look forward to...
Rose grinned, genuinely this time, and flopped back onto his shoulder. "Who doesn't look forward to spending time with the alpha bitch?"
"Exactly," Gabriel said, letting her lie against him again with another small smile. "This was all an elaborate plot to spend more time with you."
"Yep. Yep. I see it now."
"I wasn't very subtle, I admit."
"Bullshit, you're a fucking emotion ninja."
"Yes, you're right. I was being modest to make you feel better about falling for my wiles."
Rose laughed, nuzzling into his shoulder. "Wow. Who even fucking knew you had wiles?"
"Certainly not me," Gabriel said, lifting his hand to rest it again on Rose's shoulder.
"So now you've found out about your powers of wiles, I trust you won't use them for evil?"
"Whatever gave you that idea?"
"Don't use them for evil, Gabriel, I'd hate to have to play superhero and take you down."
"Come away with me. We can use our powers for evil together."
"I have no fucking powers of evil. I'll be your sexy second in command. You know, the one who gives boys watching the saturday morning cartoon an abrupt sexual awkening. It'll be badass."
"Together, we shall rule the world."
"Muahahaha," Rose put in dutifully.
"Quite." Gabriel leaned back against his pillows and ruined the moment by giving a sniff. Blast. He needed another tissue.
She pulled a pack of tissues out of her pocket and chucked it at his chest. "Stop trying to give me your robo-germs, they aren't transmissable to humans anyway."
Gabriel fumbled the catch, as he did all catches, gratefully pulling a tissue out and blowing his nose. He had long ago given up on being self-conscious about being sick in front of Rose, what with how frequently he was these days and how often she was over. "Thanks."
"No problem. Is shit getting any less shitty?"
"No," Gabriel said with a sigh. "Though Sebastian Smythe has apparently brought in Ohio's best lawyer to keep all Dalton students out of jail."
"It's better than nothing," Rose said, scrubbing her hand through her hair. "It'll probably blow over in the end, like every other fucking world-shattering drama we've had at this school."
"Do you know what he's being charged with?"
Rose shrugged. "I dunno. Is it more important to the student body than half the fucking population dying horribly?"
"Arson." Gabriel's own preferred way of dealing with things. Probably the only reason he wasn't under more scrutiny himself was because nobody had dug ten years into his past.
"Anyone killed?"
"Unfortunately not."
Rose raised an eyebrow. "Unfortunately?"
"You never had the 'pleasure' of meeting his foster parents." Gabriel's scowl was dark and pronounced. "I may not care for him now, but those two don't deserve to be called people."
"Oh." She clammed up, chewing her lip. "Ah. I see. But at least as long as they're alive it's easier to get him off."
"I suppose." Gabriel gave a shake of his head. "I don't really want to talk about that."
"Yeah. Sorry, man." She pulled a face and chewed her nails. "So. Prom, huh?"
"Prom," Gabriel agreed. "I should probably vote for royalty if I'm actually going to go..."
"I assume I can count on your vote?" she grinned
"I thought prom royalty was only for people who cared about popularity," Gabriel retorted smugly. "Surely that's not you!"
"Oh, it is. But my ego won't take it if my own date doesn't vote for me."
"Then I shall vote for you. Who shall I vote as your king?"
"Don't ask me. It's your vote."
"I suppose I could just leave it blank."
"But no! Your vote will be so sorely missed in voting for that most crucial of positions."
"I'll think about it."
Later that night, after Rose left, Gabriel got up and crossed over to his desk. He opened the top drawer and shifted a notebook, finding the envelope beneath it, just checking to make sure it was still there. Inside the envelope were two tickets to Dalton's prom.