Table Stakes
Title: Table Stakes
Pairing: Gabe/William
Rating: PG
Warnings: Implied sex with a minor, underage drinking.
Notes: For the no_tags challenge, prompt Midtown!Gabe/bb!Bill. A huge thank you to formerlydf, who stayed up past her bedtime for this.
The show was a good one, so tonight they’re celebrating. They’ve got cash from the venue, a post-performance high, and best yet, nowhere to be until tomorrow evening. It’s going to be a good night.
Gabe makes his way to the pool table in the corner of the bar with beer number one in hand, but there’s a kid already there, rubbing chalk onto his cue. He hasn’t started a game yet, so Gabe grins at him, leaning a hip against the wall, and says, “Play you for the table.”
The kid looks too young to be in a bar, even an upstanding establishment with disinterested security and rotgut liquor like this one, but the way he eyes Gabe up makes Gabe revise his initial estimation of the kid’s age a few years. He’s wearing tight jeans and a flannel shirt that’s both too high in the waist and too short in the sleeves. His hair’s too long to be fashionable and he’s got cheekbones that could cut glass. He looks like he could be a rentboy. Or one of their fans, come to think of it.
“I break,” the kid says, so Gabe grins and pushes off the wall.
“Gabe,” he says, holding out his beer.
“Bill,” replies his new rival for the pool table, picking up own bottle from the edge of the table and tipping it to clink against Gabe’s. “Are we betting anything else?”
“Eager to bet; should I be worried I’m about to get my ass handed to me?” Gabe asks, taking a cue off the rack. “What are you thinking, money or drinks?”
“Drinks work,” Bill says. “Winner buys a round?”
“Fuck no, that’s some pussy shit,” Gabe declares. He’s planning on being at least three rounds in by the time they clean this up, and that’s giving the kid’s pool skills the benefit of the doubt. “Let’s make this actually interesting. Penalty shot for every time the other guy gets a ball in, loser buys all.”
For a second he thinks Bill’s not going to take it, probably because he has the body mass index of a feather, but then he tilts his head and says, “We’re going to need some shot glasses.”
Acquiring shot glasses has never been a problem for Gabe. He whistles for the bartender - or, more accurately, for Hitt, who currently has the attention of the bartender - and makes the international sign for ‘bring me a bottle of vodka.’
“You come here a lot?” Gabe asks, because what some people call cliché, he calls a classic.
Bill shrugs. “Sometimes,” he says. “I go see shows in Chicago a lot.”
“Yeah?” Hitt shows up then with a bottle of Absolut and a stack of glasses, so Gabe is distracted by assurances of being good for it and protecting his table stakes from the rest of his alcoholic band mates. “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got,” he says once the bottle is safely in his possession, taking a glass off the top of the stack and pouring the first shot.
Bill leans over the table and breaks. Two balls hit the corner pockets, both solids.
“Fuck,” Gabe says. “I’m about to be drunk as shit, aren’t I?”
Bill straightens and smiles. It’s not necessarily a smile Gabe would trust, particularly considering that shot. “Should have thought of that first, shouldn’t you?”
Gabe does the first shot, pours again and downs the second. “Your parents know you’re out here fleecing dive bar patrons on a school night?” he asks, pouring again. He has a feeling he’s going to be drinking it.
Bill leans over, lines up a shot, and sinks it. “Who says I’m still in school?” he asks, turning around and raising his eyebrows at Gabe. Which makes him a cocky little fuck, but Gabe still knows high school when he sees it. Everything about this kid is still trying too hard.
“How old are you?” he asks, taking his penalty shot like a man and pouring again, only slightly sloppy.
The eyebrows don’t go down an inch. “How old do you think I am?” When Gabe doesn’t answer, Bill shrugs and says, “Twenty-one.”
Gabe snorts. He’s definitely not twenty-one. Gabe would be surprised if he was even eighteen.
“Twenty,” Bill amends.
“What, are we doing the Queer as Folk thing now?” Gabe asks, leaning on his cue. “You want to keep going, or skip all those numbers in the middle and give me the real one?”
Bill gives him a strange look. “You’ve seen Queer as Folk?”
“Fuck yes I have, there’s lesbians on that shit,” Gabe confirms enthusiastically. He supposes a high school kid is probably surprised by anyone who admits to watching gay softcore, but Gabe is secure in his masculinity.
The weird look doesn’t exactly go away, but Bill does direct his attention back to the pool table, lining up for another shot that Gabe can tell from here he’s going to make.
He scratches.
Gabe gives Bill an extremely skeptical look. Bill just shrugs. “I was thirsty,” he says, and circles around the table to the vodka bottle.
Gabe manages to sink his first ball, helped by the fact that he can line it up nice and easy, but he misses the next one. Bill claims his penalty shot and then trades places with Gabe, clearly expecting there to be more vodka in Gabe’s future.
“You could have told me you were a pool sharp,” Gabe comments, watching Bill bend over and line up. He’s a got a great…well, okay, no, he doesn’t have much of an ass at all, actually. That doesn’t mean Gabe wouldn’t mind tapping that.
Bill doesn’t answer until after he sinks his shot, and then he looks up, frowning. “Shark,” he says. “Pool shark.”
“Sharp,” Gabe corrects, and shows his teeth when he smiles. “Trust me, I used to work the poker tables.”
That earns him an interested look, but Bill doesn’t pursue it right away, bending to sink the next ball into the side pocket. Gabe hopes no one’s watching closely enough to see that this kid is wiping the floor with him. His band mates would never let him hear the end of it.
“Should I let you have one?” Bill asks, smiling a coy little smile as he rests a sharp-boned hip against the side of the table.
“Less talking, more playing. Put your money where your mouth is,” Gabe demands, which is probably a pretty stupid thing to do, considering, but he’s not about to be a pansy just because he’s getting his ass kicked.
Bill smirks and pushes off the table, and all right, yes, Gabe would officially hit that. Maybe multiple times. Maybe tonight, even, if this goes well.
Maybe after he sees a valid ID with date of birth, as well.
Bill makes his shot, which does not surprise Gabe one fucking bit at this point. He’s lining up to take the last one before the eight ball and Gabe is maybe a little distracted by the view, wondering if it’s better to check that Bill is legal first or to skip it so he’ll have plausible deniability when he fucks Bill anyway, so he’s confused when Bill straightens and says, “Your shot.”
Gabe is in the process of reflexively pouring when he belatedly registers that the red ball is still on the table. “Did you scratch on purpose again?” He gestures with the bottle in warning. “Because I don’t need your pity shots.”
Well, he does, clearly, but that’s not the point. The point is that if he’s going to lose by a monumental landslide, it’s going to be a fair game.
“No, I actually missed that one,” Bill says, and there’s a tiny scowl on his face, so Gabe believes him. It’s kind of adorable, actually. Gabe’s thinking about licking it.
“Watch how it’s done, then,” Gabe says, with the confidence of someone who knows perfectly fucking well that he’s both outmatched and no longer even remotely sober. He swaggers over to the other side of the table and then changes his mind and comes back so that he can bend over in a more strategic position for Bill to be checking out his ass. Just in case it hasn’t been noticed yet. Gabe hasn’t gotten to do a lot of bending during this game.
By some miracle, he gets his first ball in, but the second one is a lost cause to begin with, and he actually knocks Bill’s red ball into the corner pocket in the process.
“That was for scratching earlier,” he lies. He can tell Bill knows better by the smirk on his face, but he honest to fuck doesn’t even care. He thinks he might want to lick the smirk, too.
“New bet,” he says on impulse. “Winner fucks the loser.”
“Wow,” Bill says, looking fairly stunned but still managing somehow to smirk through it, “you don’t have a lot of confidence in your bedroom skills, do you?”
There’s an insult in there somewhere, Gabe just isn’t sober and sarcastic enough to figure it out. “I am a sex god,” he says. “I’m in a band.” Which is all the proof Bill should need. Everyone knows lead singers are fucking amazing in bed.
“I know,” Bill says. “I was at your show.”
And okay, wow. And wait a second. “You should have said something,” Gabe says, flattered. “I would have given you an autograph or some shit.”
“I’m getting propositioned instead,” Bill replies, “so I think I’m making out okay.”
“About that,” Gabe says.
Bill toys with his pool cue in a way that’s probably not meant to be as suggestive as Gabe’s brain is making it. Then again, he could be wrong. “Shouldn’t you be trying to convince me that I should let you fuck me anyway because you’ll make it good for me?” Bill asks. “I think you’re using the wrong approach here.”
“I was wrong, you’re not eighteen,” Gabe tells him. “You’re, like, thirty-one. No teenager would be arguing pick-up line technique when they could be getting laid.”
“I’m not eighteen,” Bill replies, smiling.
Fuck, there goes his plausible deniability. “Don’t tell me,” Gabe orders. “Not another word. Yes or no?”
Bill opens his mouth like he’s going to give Gabe shit about having to answer without talking, but then he just says, “Yes.”
While Gabe’s still processing that, he turns around and sinks the eight ball.
Gabe takes a moment to evaluate, only slightly diverted from that task by the reappearance of Bill’s smirk, which is now tempered with something softer, a little less sure of himself.
“Tell me honestly,” Gabe says, because at this point, in for a penny, in for a pound. “Am I going to end up in jail in the morning?”
Bill shrugs. “Maybe it’ll be worth it,” he says, which should sound cocky as shit again but really sounds more hopeful than anything. “Do you care?”
Gabe doesn’t, truthfully, have to think about that one for long. “No,” he answers. “As long as you’re not an aspiring lawyer or something.”
Bill shakes his head. “I’m in a band.”
“Yeah?” Gabe pours a shot for each of them, and offers one to Bill over the pool table. “What do you play?”
“I don’t.” Bill tilts his chin up, a hint of fuck-you defiance that Gabe recognizes instantly. “I sing.”
Gabe feels his mouth stretching slowly into a grin and holds up his glass in toast. “Cheers,” he says, slouching against the pool table and giving Bill the once-over he thoroughly deserves by this point. “In that case - let me tell you my theory about lead singers.”
Pairing: Gabe/William
Rating: PG
Warnings: Implied sex with a minor, underage drinking.
Notes: For the no_tags challenge, prompt Midtown!Gabe/bb!Bill. A huge thank you to formerlydf, who stayed up past her bedtime for this.
The show was a good one, so tonight they’re celebrating. They’ve got cash from the venue, a post-performance high, and best yet, nowhere to be until tomorrow evening. It’s going to be a good night.
Gabe makes his way to the pool table in the corner of the bar with beer number one in hand, but there’s a kid already there, rubbing chalk onto his cue. He hasn’t started a game yet, so Gabe grins at him, leaning a hip against the wall, and says, “Play you for the table.”
The kid looks too young to be in a bar, even an upstanding establishment with disinterested security and rotgut liquor like this one, but the way he eyes Gabe up makes Gabe revise his initial estimation of the kid’s age a few years. He’s wearing tight jeans and a flannel shirt that’s both too high in the waist and too short in the sleeves. His hair’s too long to be fashionable and he’s got cheekbones that could cut glass. He looks like he could be a rentboy. Or one of their fans, come to think of it.
“I break,” the kid says, so Gabe grins and pushes off the wall.
“Gabe,” he says, holding out his beer.
“Bill,” replies his new rival for the pool table, picking up own bottle from the edge of the table and tipping it to clink against Gabe’s. “Are we betting anything else?”
“Eager to bet; should I be worried I’m about to get my ass handed to me?” Gabe asks, taking a cue off the rack. “What are you thinking, money or drinks?”
“Drinks work,” Bill says. “Winner buys a round?”
“Fuck no, that’s some pussy shit,” Gabe declares. He’s planning on being at least three rounds in by the time they clean this up, and that’s giving the kid’s pool skills the benefit of the doubt. “Let’s make this actually interesting. Penalty shot for every time the other guy gets a ball in, loser buys all.”
For a second he thinks Bill’s not going to take it, probably because he has the body mass index of a feather, but then he tilts his head and says, “We’re going to need some shot glasses.”
Acquiring shot glasses has never been a problem for Gabe. He whistles for the bartender - or, more accurately, for Hitt, who currently has the attention of the bartender - and makes the international sign for ‘bring me a bottle of vodka.’
“You come here a lot?” Gabe asks, because what some people call cliché, he calls a classic.
Bill shrugs. “Sometimes,” he says. “I go see shows in Chicago a lot.”
“Yeah?” Hitt shows up then with a bottle of Absolut and a stack of glasses, so Gabe is distracted by assurances of being good for it and protecting his table stakes from the rest of his alcoholic band mates. “Okay, let’s see what you’ve got,” he says once the bottle is safely in his possession, taking a glass off the top of the stack and pouring the first shot.
Bill leans over the table and breaks. Two balls hit the corner pockets, both solids.
“Fuck,” Gabe says. “I’m about to be drunk as shit, aren’t I?”
Bill straightens and smiles. It’s not necessarily a smile Gabe would trust, particularly considering that shot. “Should have thought of that first, shouldn’t you?”
Gabe does the first shot, pours again and downs the second. “Your parents know you’re out here fleecing dive bar patrons on a school night?” he asks, pouring again. He has a feeling he’s going to be drinking it.
Bill leans over, lines up a shot, and sinks it. “Who says I’m still in school?” he asks, turning around and raising his eyebrows at Gabe. Which makes him a cocky little fuck, but Gabe still knows high school when he sees it. Everything about this kid is still trying too hard.
“How old are you?” he asks, taking his penalty shot like a man and pouring again, only slightly sloppy.
The eyebrows don’t go down an inch. “How old do you think I am?” When Gabe doesn’t answer, Bill shrugs and says, “Twenty-one.”
Gabe snorts. He’s definitely not twenty-one. Gabe would be surprised if he was even eighteen.
“Twenty,” Bill amends.
“What, are we doing the Queer as Folk thing now?” Gabe asks, leaning on his cue. “You want to keep going, or skip all those numbers in the middle and give me the real one?”
Bill gives him a strange look. “You’ve seen Queer as Folk?”
“Fuck yes I have, there’s lesbians on that shit,” Gabe confirms enthusiastically. He supposes a high school kid is probably surprised by anyone who admits to watching gay softcore, but Gabe is secure in his masculinity.
The weird look doesn’t exactly go away, but Bill does direct his attention back to the pool table, lining up for another shot that Gabe can tell from here he’s going to make.
He scratches.
Gabe gives Bill an extremely skeptical look. Bill just shrugs. “I was thirsty,” he says, and circles around the table to the vodka bottle.
Gabe manages to sink his first ball, helped by the fact that he can line it up nice and easy, but he misses the next one. Bill claims his penalty shot and then trades places with Gabe, clearly expecting there to be more vodka in Gabe’s future.
“You could have told me you were a pool sharp,” Gabe comments, watching Bill bend over and line up. He’s a got a great…well, okay, no, he doesn’t have much of an ass at all, actually. That doesn’t mean Gabe wouldn’t mind tapping that.
Bill doesn’t answer until after he sinks his shot, and then he looks up, frowning. “Shark,” he says. “Pool shark.”
“Sharp,” Gabe corrects, and shows his teeth when he smiles. “Trust me, I used to work the poker tables.”
That earns him an interested look, but Bill doesn’t pursue it right away, bending to sink the next ball into the side pocket. Gabe hopes no one’s watching closely enough to see that this kid is wiping the floor with him. His band mates would never let him hear the end of it.
“Should I let you have one?” Bill asks, smiling a coy little smile as he rests a sharp-boned hip against the side of the table.
“Less talking, more playing. Put your money where your mouth is,” Gabe demands, which is probably a pretty stupid thing to do, considering, but he’s not about to be a pansy just because he’s getting his ass kicked.
Bill smirks and pushes off the table, and all right, yes, Gabe would officially hit that. Maybe multiple times. Maybe tonight, even, if this goes well.
Maybe after he sees a valid ID with date of birth, as well.
Bill makes his shot, which does not surprise Gabe one fucking bit at this point. He’s lining up to take the last one before the eight ball and Gabe is maybe a little distracted by the view, wondering if it’s better to check that Bill is legal first or to skip it so he’ll have plausible deniability when he fucks Bill anyway, so he’s confused when Bill straightens and says, “Your shot.”
Gabe is in the process of reflexively pouring when he belatedly registers that the red ball is still on the table. “Did you scratch on purpose again?” He gestures with the bottle in warning. “Because I don’t need your pity shots.”
Well, he does, clearly, but that’s not the point. The point is that if he’s going to lose by a monumental landslide, it’s going to be a fair game.
“No, I actually missed that one,” Bill says, and there’s a tiny scowl on his face, so Gabe believes him. It’s kind of adorable, actually. Gabe’s thinking about licking it.
“Watch how it’s done, then,” Gabe says, with the confidence of someone who knows perfectly fucking well that he’s both outmatched and no longer even remotely sober. He swaggers over to the other side of the table and then changes his mind and comes back so that he can bend over in a more strategic position for Bill to be checking out his ass. Just in case it hasn’t been noticed yet. Gabe hasn’t gotten to do a lot of bending during this game.
By some miracle, he gets his first ball in, but the second one is a lost cause to begin with, and he actually knocks Bill’s red ball into the corner pocket in the process.
“That was for scratching earlier,” he lies. He can tell Bill knows better by the smirk on his face, but he honest to fuck doesn’t even care. He thinks he might want to lick the smirk, too.
“New bet,” he says on impulse. “Winner fucks the loser.”
“Wow,” Bill says, looking fairly stunned but still managing somehow to smirk through it, “you don’t have a lot of confidence in your bedroom skills, do you?”
There’s an insult in there somewhere, Gabe just isn’t sober and sarcastic enough to figure it out. “I am a sex god,” he says. “I’m in a band.” Which is all the proof Bill should need. Everyone knows lead singers are fucking amazing in bed.
“I know,” Bill says. “I was at your show.”
And okay, wow. And wait a second. “You should have said something,” Gabe says, flattered. “I would have given you an autograph or some shit.”
“I’m getting propositioned instead,” Bill replies, “so I think I’m making out okay.”
“About that,” Gabe says.
Bill toys with his pool cue in a way that’s probably not meant to be as suggestive as Gabe’s brain is making it. Then again, he could be wrong. “Shouldn’t you be trying to convince me that I should let you fuck me anyway because you’ll make it good for me?” Bill asks. “I think you’re using the wrong approach here.”
“I was wrong, you’re not eighteen,” Gabe tells him. “You’re, like, thirty-one. No teenager would be arguing pick-up line technique when they could be getting laid.”
“I’m not eighteen,” Bill replies, smiling.
Fuck, there goes his plausible deniability. “Don’t tell me,” Gabe orders. “Not another word. Yes or no?”
Bill opens his mouth like he’s going to give Gabe shit about having to answer without talking, but then he just says, “Yes.”
While Gabe’s still processing that, he turns around and sinks the eight ball.
Gabe takes a moment to evaluate, only slightly diverted from that task by the reappearance of Bill’s smirk, which is now tempered with something softer, a little less sure of himself.
“Tell me honestly,” Gabe says, because at this point, in for a penny, in for a pound. “Am I going to end up in jail in the morning?”
Bill shrugs. “Maybe it’ll be worth it,” he says, which should sound cocky as shit again but really sounds more hopeful than anything. “Do you care?”
Gabe doesn’t, truthfully, have to think about that one for long. “No,” he answers. “As long as you’re not an aspiring lawyer or something.”
Bill shakes his head. “I’m in a band.”
“Yeah?” Gabe pours a shot for each of them, and offers one to Bill over the pool table. “What do you play?”
“I don’t.” Bill tilts his chin up, a hint of fuck-you defiance that Gabe recognizes instantly. “I sing.”
Gabe feels his mouth stretching slowly into a grin and holds up his glass in toast. “Cheers,” he says, slouching against the pool table and giving Bill the once-over he thoroughly deserves by this point. “In that case - let me tell you my theory about lead singers.”