(no subject)
cute without the 'e' | gabe/alex, alex/william | 2100 | pg-13
notes: i just sketched this up on an actual computer. i'm way too fucking lazy to go back and correct the fact that i've raped the english grammar system. sue me. :)
your lipstick, his collar, don't bother angel, i know exactly what goes on. watchin' him keep the details covered. you're such a sucker for a sweet-talker. hoping for the best, just hoping nothing happens. a thousand clever lines unread on clever napkins. i will never ask if you don't ever tell me -- i know you well enough to know you never loved me. why can't i feel anything from anyone other than you?
there's a note on the refrigerator when gabe gets home from a late night of flirtation, bartending and trying to pay he and his boyfriend's rent. it's not special; it doesn't have a scent or any kind of flowery handwriting. for all he knows it's a damn eviction notice. wouldn't that be his luck? because for some reason, down at the club, business has been slow and he's been waiting for the two of them to get kicked out.
it's okay, he tells himself. so long as alex doesn't leave him or anything, he'll be okay.
so of course, because he's tired, he doesn't think to read the note right away. instead he makes coffee, enough for himself and his boo, just so that alex can have a little chill time, the two of them, before he has to run off to his bank-telling job. he stirs a tiny bit of sugar into his own before hopping up on the counter and sipping on it gently. he doesn't hear the usual showering noises he does when he comes home at the approximate crack of dawn.
it must be that alex is still asleep, he thinks with a yawn and another splash of java to the throat.
he's getting tired. it doesn't take much when he's on his feet all night to come home completely exhausted, after all. so he finishes his coffee, sets the mug into the bottom of the sink. he takes a moment to study it for all its flaws, the chips in the glaze and the thin crack (that's more like a hairline fracture than anything) running up the side. the way that it's lost most of its coloring. just the fact that it's worn down and tired and probably needs a bit of a break and a fix-up.
that's how he feels right now. because everyone knows that color is vitality, that color adds to the condition of life. he has chips and cracks and crevices.
but it's okay, he tells himself with a yawn, fingers tangled in his curls as he scratches the back of his head. so long as one person accepts him, right?
then with a lazy smile at the idea, he toddles over to the fridge, where the note is magneted on with one of those neon-hue letters, the ones that they got just in case they had more than enough time to actually write something.
it was stuck there with a 'g'. if that wasn't any way to catch gabe's attention, there certainly wasn't one at all.
'gabe,' the note read. 'i'm leaving. i hate to say it, but i'm getting bored with waiting for you to come home from hitting on everyone just so you can support us. i have a better job waiting for me, but it's not here. it's in florida. i'm sorry. i can't believe that we've been together as long as we have, that neither of us have realized just what this relationship has become -- a security blanket. we're just looking for more and more excuses to stay together after every argument,' and here gabe has to stop because he doesn't have any argument in recent memory, but then again he was living with the idea that they were fine together, just fine, that they wouldn't hit a speedbump like this.
that, and he's about to cry.
he tries to read the rest of the letter, but all he can make out that the real reason for the two of them breaking up is '...because complacent is a horrible place to be.' the rest of the words are blurred out by the tears in his eyes. since when was complacency such a bad thing? since when was being just that comfortable so undesirable that alex would just... fucking leave?
the apartment is empty and a hell of a lot more lonesome than he'd like it to be. he's pretty sure that he can hear the drip of that one tear rolling off the end of his nose and onto the floor, like a leaky faucet only with a lot less amusement potential. he doesn't like feeling like anything that's broken, be it the pipelines under his sink or a heart that's been torn to pieces, ripped apart and left to sputter out in the gutter.
he never wanted any of this, didn't even want to come to the conclusion that he had, in fact, been in love with alex. so, then... why did he do all that just to find that someone had changed their mind? that circumstance had pulled them apart?
because to gabe, it's all circumstance. that's the only explanation other than lies, and he can't help himself -- he doesn't want to call alex a liar, even if he believes it himself.
---
alex is a damn liar, there's nothing more to it than that. there is no florida. there is no new job. there is nothing but new york, new york and everything that comes along with it. of course, he doesn't have to worry about 'everything that comes along' so much now that he's out of that busted little place he and gabe were staying at. nevermind the fact that it was theirs; it was a hole, and alex sort of hated it from time to time. the only good thing about the rat poison and the roaches and the neighbors who not only liked to fuck, but liked to broadcast that they liked to fuck, was gabe.
gabe. with his smile and his gorgeous hands and his honesty. brutal to a fault, but then again everyone knew that about him the moment they met him. alex wasn't some kind of special exception. he was the only one that could make a tiny broken-down studio worth living in. that's probably why they lived together there for a year, at the very least.
but really, if you think about it, there was no time during which it was ever good in the middle of the winter. there's not much to come to expect aside from broken pipes freezing over and the promise of yet another snow before april breaks.
there is, however, something sunny and beautiful in his life. that something's name is beckett. he's a voracious flirt and he's got the best hips-eyes-lips anyone's ever seen.
the only thing is that william has this horrible habit of coming to see his boyfriend -- such a juvenile word, alex thinks with a scowl pressed onto his lips as he shoves his glasses back up over the bump of his nose; nevermind the fact that he and gabe used it all the time way back when, before the breakup and the subsequent devastation -- during their lunch breaks, which are rather (in)conveniently scheduled at the same time. he brings food and his adorable smile and the promise of a lot more should they both manage to behave themselves.
oh, if only banks weren't the second-worse place to work int he entire world as far as security were concerned. they'd make it necessary for banks to have a health rating.
they sit in the break room and though it's mostly deserted (pretty much everyone eats takeout at this stage in the game, realizing that they live in new york fucking city and if you can't find a decent pizza place to go on your break, you need to make arrangements to stay elsewhere) there's the occasional outcast, much like him. alex eats vegetarian food; william stares at it oddly, as if it's a creature and it's going to
"i don't think you should be here," alex mumbles into his vegetable-and-tofu-sandwich before taking a bite, his face so red that he's pretty sure that no amount of pouting on william's part that could coerce him into putting the food down and letting anyone see him.
william just sort of half-smiles and takes his baby's hand and goes for it, plants a kiss right there on his lips, in front of everyone. gabe wouldn't've done this, wouldn't've come to his work, his lunchroom, and embarrassed himself in front of everyone. as much as he was boring, at least he didn't feel the need to make a fool of the both of them.
he thinks of gabe's smile, the kind of wry grin that says 'no' without saying anything at all, the one he'd be wearing if he were to see what's going on. if things were different and he hadn't just left a note instead of giving him the explanation he deserved.
but it's hard to keep that image in mind when he's holding someone else's hand.
---
it's been a long time since gabe has worked completely clear and sober. but he manages, about two months after the day which shall never be spoken of again.
he sees alex dancing with someone he doesn't know and all of a sudden he sort of wishes he weren't working on getting clean after all. maybe there's some vodka at home -- he's not sure -- but just to be safe he takes a bottle of ketel one home with him at the end of the night.
---
alex had almost forgotten that gabe worked at this club.
when he sees those brown eyes looking into him, dark and kind of misty and as close to nostalgic as a gabe saporta can be without violating his own principles, he grabs william by the ass from around the waist and pulls him into a kiss. it doesn't mean anything except that someone's probably going to earn their head tonight should they play along.
sometimes, alex concludes when he and william break away with a tiny strand of saliva connecting their mouths so awkwardly that even the bystander that had been rooting them on just a moment ago has to roll his eyes and tell them to get a room, he misses being in love. even if it was boring, he never had to feel fulfilled.
---
whatever, gabe tells himself with the slightest of shrugs as he climbs into bed the next morning. he's had two cups of coffee; he still can't get warm even after he's hidden himself under the myriad blankets. he doesn't think he'll be resting anytime soon even if he does manage to make it to sleep this time around. he continues with the self-coaching: so what if alex has someone else? it's not like he gives two shits or anything. they're both adults and the breakup was a while ago now. they've both had time to move on.
somehow, it manages to eat away at him that he's the one that hasn't.
are breakups a competition? because if so, gabe saporta just comes in dead fucking last every single time.
he doesn't cry anymore. he just curls up into a ball, tucks his knees to his chin and bites his lip and prays that he doesn't lose, not entirely.
---
alex falls asleep in a tangle of long limbs.
before he does, william murmurs some words that alex doesn't want to hear. those words.
sighing, alex kisses william's forehead and allows them to sleep. he's got to call gabe when he's not so hung over. he's got to go back to how things were.
the next morning, william finally tells alex that he's only 16. alex hits the floor within five seconds and doesn't wake up for what seems like days once the time's gone by. there's no undoing that. you can't break up with a fucking child, not when they think they're in love with you.
ironic, isn't it, that you try and get away from something you feel that you're doing because you have to only to fall into the same thing.
---
gabe answers his phone sleepily and a little bit pissed off -- he hates being woken this early in the morning.
alex says he wants to come back, that he misses their piece of shit apartment in the middle of manhattan and that he would want nothing more than to come home and spend the rest of his miserable bank-telling life with gabe.
gabe says no, that alex will probably get a new job soon anyway, that he should go have fun with his jailbait (which is obvious, by the way) and hangs up. he rolls over, goes back to sleep, and that's the end of that.
alex looks at his phone, then over at william, then back at his phone. there are no decisions to make, only what you can and cannot do.
notes: i just sketched this up on an actual computer. i'm way too fucking lazy to go back and correct the fact that i've raped the english grammar system. sue me. :)
your lipstick, his collar, don't bother angel, i know exactly what goes on. watchin' him keep the details covered. you're such a sucker for a sweet-talker. hoping for the best, just hoping nothing happens. a thousand clever lines unread on clever napkins. i will never ask if you don't ever tell me -- i know you well enough to know you never loved me. why can't i feel anything from anyone other than you?
there's a note on the refrigerator when gabe gets home from a late night of flirtation, bartending and trying to pay he and his boyfriend's rent. it's not special; it doesn't have a scent or any kind of flowery handwriting. for all he knows it's a damn eviction notice. wouldn't that be his luck? because for some reason, down at the club, business has been slow and he's been waiting for the two of them to get kicked out.
it's okay, he tells himself. so long as alex doesn't leave him or anything, he'll be okay.
so of course, because he's tired, he doesn't think to read the note right away. instead he makes coffee, enough for himself and his boo, just so that alex can have a little chill time, the two of them, before he has to run off to his bank-telling job. he stirs a tiny bit of sugar into his own before hopping up on the counter and sipping on it gently. he doesn't hear the usual showering noises he does when he comes home at the approximate crack of dawn.
it must be that alex is still asleep, he thinks with a yawn and another splash of java to the throat.
he's getting tired. it doesn't take much when he's on his feet all night to come home completely exhausted, after all. so he finishes his coffee, sets the mug into the bottom of the sink. he takes a moment to study it for all its flaws, the chips in the glaze and the thin crack (that's more like a hairline fracture than anything) running up the side. the way that it's lost most of its coloring. just the fact that it's worn down and tired and probably needs a bit of a break and a fix-up.
that's how he feels right now. because everyone knows that color is vitality, that color adds to the condition of life. he has chips and cracks and crevices.
but it's okay, he tells himself with a yawn, fingers tangled in his curls as he scratches the back of his head. so long as one person accepts him, right?
then with a lazy smile at the idea, he toddles over to the fridge, where the note is magneted on with one of those neon-hue letters, the ones that they got just in case they had more than enough time to actually write something.
it was stuck there with a 'g'. if that wasn't any way to catch gabe's attention, there certainly wasn't one at all.
'gabe,' the note read. 'i'm leaving. i hate to say it, but i'm getting bored with waiting for you to come home from hitting on everyone just so you can support us. i have a better job waiting for me, but it's not here. it's in florida. i'm sorry. i can't believe that we've been together as long as we have, that neither of us have realized just what this relationship has become -- a security blanket. we're just looking for more and more excuses to stay together after every argument,' and here gabe has to stop because he doesn't have any argument in recent memory, but then again he was living with the idea that they were fine together, just fine, that they wouldn't hit a speedbump like this.
that, and he's about to cry.
he tries to read the rest of the letter, but all he can make out that the real reason for the two of them breaking up is '...because complacent is a horrible place to be.' the rest of the words are blurred out by the tears in his eyes. since when was complacency such a bad thing? since when was being just that comfortable so undesirable that alex would just... fucking leave?
the apartment is empty and a hell of a lot more lonesome than he'd like it to be. he's pretty sure that he can hear the drip of that one tear rolling off the end of his nose and onto the floor, like a leaky faucet only with a lot less amusement potential. he doesn't like feeling like anything that's broken, be it the pipelines under his sink or a heart that's been torn to pieces, ripped apart and left to sputter out in the gutter.
he never wanted any of this, didn't even want to come to the conclusion that he had, in fact, been in love with alex. so, then... why did he do all that just to find that someone had changed their mind? that circumstance had pulled them apart?
because to gabe, it's all circumstance. that's the only explanation other than lies, and he can't help himself -- he doesn't want to call alex a liar, even if he believes it himself.
---
alex is a damn liar, there's nothing more to it than that. there is no florida. there is no new job. there is nothing but new york, new york and everything that comes along with it. of course, he doesn't have to worry about 'everything that comes along' so much now that he's out of that busted little place he and gabe were staying at. nevermind the fact that it was theirs; it was a hole, and alex sort of hated it from time to time. the only good thing about the rat poison and the roaches and the neighbors who not only liked to fuck, but liked to broadcast that they liked to fuck, was gabe.
gabe. with his smile and his gorgeous hands and his honesty. brutal to a fault, but then again everyone knew that about him the moment they met him. alex wasn't some kind of special exception. he was the only one that could make a tiny broken-down studio worth living in. that's probably why they lived together there for a year, at the very least.
but really, if you think about it, there was no time during which it was ever good in the middle of the winter. there's not much to come to expect aside from broken pipes freezing over and the promise of yet another snow before april breaks.
there is, however, something sunny and beautiful in his life. that something's name is beckett. he's a voracious flirt and he's got the best hips-eyes-lips anyone's ever seen.
the only thing is that william has this horrible habit of coming to see his boyfriend -- such a juvenile word, alex thinks with a scowl pressed onto his lips as he shoves his glasses back up over the bump of his nose; nevermind the fact that he and gabe used it all the time way back when, before the breakup and the subsequent devastation -- during their lunch breaks, which are rather (in)conveniently scheduled at the same time. he brings food and his adorable smile and the promise of a lot more should they both manage to behave themselves.
oh, if only banks weren't the second-worse place to work int he entire world as far as security were concerned. they'd make it necessary for banks to have a health rating.
they sit in the break room and though it's mostly deserted (pretty much everyone eats takeout at this stage in the game, realizing that they live in new york fucking city and if you can't find a decent pizza place to go on your break, you need to make arrangements to stay elsewhere) there's the occasional outcast, much like him. alex eats vegetarian food; william stares at it oddly, as if it's a creature and it's going to
"i don't think you should be here," alex mumbles into his vegetable-and-tofu-sandwich before taking a bite, his face so red that he's pretty sure that no amount of pouting on william's part that could coerce him into putting the food down and letting anyone see him.
william just sort of half-smiles and takes his baby's hand and goes for it, plants a kiss right there on his lips, in front of everyone. gabe wouldn't've done this, wouldn't've come to his work, his lunchroom, and embarrassed himself in front of everyone. as much as he was boring, at least he didn't feel the need to make a fool of the both of them.
he thinks of gabe's smile, the kind of wry grin that says 'no' without saying anything at all, the one he'd be wearing if he were to see what's going on. if things were different and he hadn't just left a note instead of giving him the explanation he deserved.
but it's hard to keep that image in mind when he's holding someone else's hand.
---
it's been a long time since gabe has worked completely clear and sober. but he manages, about two months after the day which shall never be spoken of again.
he sees alex dancing with someone he doesn't know and all of a sudden he sort of wishes he weren't working on getting clean after all. maybe there's some vodka at home -- he's not sure -- but just to be safe he takes a bottle of ketel one home with him at the end of the night.
---
alex had almost forgotten that gabe worked at this club.
when he sees those brown eyes looking into him, dark and kind of misty and as close to nostalgic as a gabe saporta can be without violating his own principles, he grabs william by the ass from around the waist and pulls him into a kiss. it doesn't mean anything except that someone's probably going to earn their head tonight should they play along.
sometimes, alex concludes when he and william break away with a tiny strand of saliva connecting their mouths so awkwardly that even the bystander that had been rooting them on just a moment ago has to roll his eyes and tell them to get a room, he misses being in love. even if it was boring, he never had to feel fulfilled.
---
whatever, gabe tells himself with the slightest of shrugs as he climbs into bed the next morning. he's had two cups of coffee; he still can't get warm even after he's hidden himself under the myriad blankets. he doesn't think he'll be resting anytime soon even if he does manage to make it to sleep this time around. he continues with the self-coaching: so what if alex has someone else? it's not like he gives two shits or anything. they're both adults and the breakup was a while ago now. they've both had time to move on.
somehow, it manages to eat away at him that he's the one that hasn't.
are breakups a competition? because if so, gabe saporta just comes in dead fucking last every single time.
he doesn't cry anymore. he just curls up into a ball, tucks his knees to his chin and bites his lip and prays that he doesn't lose, not entirely.
---
alex falls asleep in a tangle of long limbs.
before he does, william murmurs some words that alex doesn't want to hear. those words.
sighing, alex kisses william's forehead and allows them to sleep. he's got to call gabe when he's not so hung over. he's got to go back to how things were.
the next morning, william finally tells alex that he's only 16. alex hits the floor within five seconds and doesn't wake up for what seems like days once the time's gone by. there's no undoing that. you can't break up with a fucking child, not when they think they're in love with you.
ironic, isn't it, that you try and get away from something you feel that you're doing because you have to only to fall into the same thing.
---
gabe answers his phone sleepily and a little bit pissed off -- he hates being woken this early in the morning.
alex says he wants to come back, that he misses their piece of shit apartment in the middle of manhattan and that he would want nothing more than to come home and spend the rest of his miserable bank-telling life with gabe.
gabe says no, that alex will probably get a new job soon anyway, that he should go have fun with his jailbait (which is obvious, by the way) and hangs up. he rolls over, goes back to sleep, and that's the end of that.
alex looks at his phone, then over at william, then back at his phone. there are no decisions to make, only what you can and cannot do.