fic: Enough
Title: Enough
Characters/Pairings: sort of one-sided Robbie/Gary, appearances by the Barlow children
Rating: PG-13ish
Warnings: I suggest backing away slowly if RPS isn’t your thing.
Disclaimer: This definitely didn’t happen. Written purely for entertainment purposes, I’m making no money, please don’t sue me.
Summary: It only takes one phone call for Robbie to know there’s something wrong.
Word count: 3000ish
Author’s note: This was a birthday present for want_to_be_kate. It’s also my first Take That fic. And my first RPS for that matter.
Time zones, Robbie thinks, are a pain in the arse. He hates glancing at the clock and trying to figure out what time it is in the UK, determining whether it’s the middle of the night or if it’s right during dinner or if it’s an acceptable time to pick up the phone and ring whoever. He also needs to remember that Mark won’t be fit for any sort of conversation before ten AM and that he has to catch Howard during the naptime of whichever daughter he has with him, and that Jason is unlikely to answer the phone unless Robbie texts him first.
Gary, though, always picks up. He’s an insomniac and practically surgically attached to his Crackberry. Plus Gary’s been working hard to compensate for the lost years. They both have.
He does the mental math that tells him it’s about eleven-thirty in London, and he knows Gaz will be awake. Sure enough, the phone rings all of twice before Gary picks up.
“Hello?” He always answers the phone like he’s actually surprised it’s rung, which Robbie can never understand, considering Gaz probably fields at least twenty phone calls a day for all his various projects.
"Oh Captain my Captain."
"Very funny, mate."
There's something off in Gary's voice; Robbie hears it right away.
"You all right?" He asks.
"Yeah. Course." Robbie knows that tone of voice, knows that what he's really saying is no, not really. He probably shrugged too, even though Rob can't see him.
"You sure?" Robbie asks tentatively. They've mended their fences, but some days he still feels a little nervous, like maybe if he pushes too hard, they could be back to where they were two years ago, holding hateful grudges and not speaking.
"Yeah." Gary says, sounding a little less like his faking it this time. "How're you? How’s Ayda?"
"She's up in Vancouver shooting some TV pilot. But she's good."
"And you?”
"Bored out of me skull with nobody but the dogs for company. You and Dawn and the kids should come out for a visit."
"Maybe," he says, and he sounds off again. Rob doesn't know a lot, but he's always been good at reading Gaz. It's why he used to be so good at hurting him, and why he's so good at telling when he's hurting now.
“How’re the kids?”
“Growing like weeds. Had to buy Daniel a new pair of trainers this week. I swear we bought the last ones two months ago.”
“Are you at least letting him get cool ones, Gaz? He’s eleven, cool trainers are important. I know it’s easy to forget in your old age.”
“Like you’d know. You haven’t been a kid for nearly as long as me.”
“Maybe not, but I at least stayed in touch with my childish side. You decided to grow up and become a real adult.”
“Well, one of us had to, Peter Pan.” Gaz sounds even worse now, weary and tired and Robbie isn’t exactly worried, because he knows out of all of them, Gaz is definitely the most capable of taking care of himself, but he is somewhat…concerned.
“How’s the missus?”
“She’s down visiting her mum.”
It doesn’t exactly answer Robbie’s question, which makes him wonder if maybe he’s found the source of the problem.
They fill the line between them with chatter, but despite his best efforts, Gary never sounds quite like his normal self. It takes Robbie a while to figure it out, but eventually he decides Gary just sounds unhappy. He needs cheering up, that much is obvious, but Rob can’t tell how much cheering up just from one phone conversation.
Before he’s even really thought about it properly, he’s online and booking a flight from LAX to Heathrow for the next day. It only occurs to him that he ought to tell Ayda when she rings him that evening. They haven’t been married very long; he’s not used to having to be accountable to anyone but himself.
She makes a joke about him going to visit his boyfriend, which she probably wouldn’t find nearly as funny if she knew half of the things Rob ever felt about Gaz. Sure, he’s been known to take the piss in interviews, joke about how much he loves Gaz, but it’s easy to joke about because he knows no one really takes it seriously. Not even Gary.
He loves the rest of the boys like brothers, but he can’t imagine flying halfway around the world at the drop of a hat just because Markie or Jay or How sounded a bit sad on the phone. There’s something different about his relationship with Gaz, there always has been. In the beginning it was the intensity and the volatility between them that set them apart from the others, and now he feels an intimacy with Gary that he doesn’t have with anyone else. Not even Ayda, sometimes.
He thinks about telling Gaz he’s coming, but decides against it. The other man will try to talk him out of it and insist fifteen more times that he’s fine when he so obviously isn’t. And anyway, his mum’s been pushing him to visit practically since he got home from the tour - she wasn’t very happy with him the week she saw him on the X Factor and didn’t even know he’d been in the country. He can tell himself it isn’t a trip all for Gaz, even if it is, really.
* * *
After hanging up with Robbie, Gary sighs and sinks deeper into the sofa. It’s exhausting, keeping this secret. The girls aren’t catching on quite yet, but Dan keeps looking at him with big, serious eyes and now it seems Robbie is twigging to it as well.
He feels blindsided by this. He never saw it coming, and maybe that’s the point. If he’d actually noticed something was wrong, he wouldn’t be here now. Part of him wants to salvage things, gather all the jagged pieces of his marriage and glue them back together (if Mark can do it, surely Gary can too), but he doesn’t even know where to start. And he’s tired. He’s weary from fighting, from talking round in circles and accomplishing nothing, from running over everything in his head and still not knowing where it all went wrong.
He’s tempted to call Rob back and tell him, just to see if the weight on his chest will lessen a bit by letting someone else in. But saying it makes it real, and technically, nothing’s been decided yet, they’re taking time separately to decide what they want blah blah blah. It was the lawyer’s idea, but Dawn had jumped on it and Gary had no choice but to agree.
He shoves the thoughts aside, because he already knows what he wants. He spins through channels, watching the end of a movie, then the late night talk shows, then the strange, cancelled American sitcoms that start airing in the wee morning hours. He can’t stop watching telly, because if he stops he’ll be alone with the silence of a sleeping house and all his own thoughts. And he can’t handle that.
Morning comes quickly enough, and he rouses Dan and Emily, making them breakfast and twisting Em’s hair into a passable set of plaits that she’ll end up pulling out by lunchtime anyway, and then they’re out the door and packed into the carpool on the way to school and he’s alone again until Daisy wakes up.
She doesn’t disappoint him; he can hear her start to babble on the baby monitor as soon as he finishes making his tea. God bless her, Daisy is keeping him sane. Need to have your wits about you with a toddler, and Daisy is definitely no exception to that.
“Tired Daddy,” she says to him as he yawns for the tenth time while getting her breakfast.
“Tired Daddy indeed,” Gary agrees.
“Naptime,” Daisy says sagely, looking at him with the seriousness of someone much older than three.
“Not quite yet, gorgeous.”
She beams at him, and his heart breaks, because he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to live a life where he doesn’t get to have this every day.
They spend the morning making a mess of everything Gary just tidied yesterday, building a cushion fort in the sitting room and having a tea party in the kids’ playroom, inviting every single doll and stuffed animal Daisy and Emily own. Somehow when Dawn is here the chaos is minimal, or at least more contained, but Gary doesn’t know how she manages that.
They’re eating lunch when the doorbell rings, which so rarely happens that Daisy jumps in excitement.
“You stay there, love,” he tells her. “Let me see who it is.”
Robbie doesn’t have to wait long at the door after ringing the bell. Gary answers a minute later, and Robbie thinks he was right to come, because Gaz looks terrible. There are dark circles under his eyes, his clothes have that rumpled slept-in look to them, and his beard has gone much past nicely scruffy and almost reached hermit-in-the-woods territory.
“The fuck are you doing here?”
“That’s not a very nice way to greet a mate.”
“I got off the phone with you barely twelve hours ago and you never mentioned this.”
Robbie shrugs, “Sounded like you needed some cheering up. Thought I’d surprise you.”
“Cheering up?” Gary frowns. Before he can say anything more, Daisy barrels into the entryway.
“Wobbie!” She cries upon recognising him. He’s not entirely sure how it happened, but somewhere along the course of writing the new album and the tour, he became a favourite of Daisy’s. She would happily ride on his shoulders or snuggle into his lap at every opportunity. Today is no different, and she holds her arms in the air, demanding to be picked up, despite the few months that have passed since he last saw her. He scoops her up easily, settling her onto his hip.
“You’re gonna give me wife ideas, Miss Daisy.” Robbie grins at the toddler. “She’ll want lots of little Daisies running round our garden.”
Gary just shakes his head, because Robbie and Daisy really are the most unlikely pair.
“As adorable as you two are, it’s naptime for this Daisy.”
“But I wanna see Wobbie!” Daisy protests.
“No worries, kiddo, I came just to see you. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
Daisy looks sceptical, but doesn’t put up too much of a fuss when Gary takes her from Robbie.
“Make yourself at home,” Gary says over his shoulder. “I’ll be down in a minute.”
Rob leaves his bag in the hallway, wandering into the kitchen. He flips the switch on the kettle and roots around in the cupboards for mugs and tea. He’s stirring sugar into Gary’s when the older man returns to the kitchen.
“Don’t know how you drink it so sweet,” Robbie says, passing the mug to Gary, who curls his hands around it, sending Robbie a grateful smile.
“Tea’s just about the only place I get sugar these days.”
“Someday, when we’re old, we’re going to eat whatever the fuck we want and be big as houses.”
“And then Markie will make us do another tour and we’ll have heart attacks on stage.”
“It’ll be the spins in the ‘Pray’ routine that get us.” Robbie deadpans, and Gary snorts.
They sit at the table, Gary at the end and Robbie around the corner from him.
“Did you really come all this way just to cheer me up?”
Robbie shrugs. “I could tell something was wrong.”
“It’s not anything you’re going to be able to fix.”
“Tell me and we’ll see.”
“Dawn wants a divorce.” Gary says hollowly.
“Fuck, Gaz. I’m sorry.”
Gary lifts one shoulder in a pathetic half-shrug.
“Have to say, I would have put money on Markie and Emma before you and Dawn. Actually, I woulda put money on anybody but you and Dawn.”
“You and me both,” Gary admits.
“I’m glad I came.” Robbie says. “You need to at least change your clothes and take a nap, but a shower wouldn’t hurt either.”
“Thanks,” Gary says sarcastically.
“I’m serious, Gaz. You look like shit. Go on. I’ll hold the fort.”
Robbie doesn’t take no for an answer, so eventually Gary shuffles out of the kitchen with a defeated sigh. There are morning dishes piled in the sink and clean ones waiting in the dishwasher and the sitting room looks like a bomb hit it. Robbie is by no means a neat freak, but he’s here to do whatever he can to help Gaz.
The kitchen and sitting rooms are spotless by the time Daisy wakes up and she squeals in delight upon discovering he’s still there. Robbie allows himself to be dragged into silly games of dress up, and doesn’t complain when Daisy jams a tiara on his head and starts calling him Pwincess Wobbie. He considers himself lucky, though, that no one else is there to see it. He knows they’d never let him forget it.
Gary is still asleep when Dan and Emily get dropped off after school, and both of them look a little alarmed when they find Robbie in the sitting room (still wearing his tiara) and playing with Daisy.
“Where’s Dad?” Dan asks, eyes darting around the room nervously.
“Having a lie down. He’s fine. I flew in for a visit, is all,” he says, answering Dan’s unasked why are you here?
Dan glances over at Emily, sitting at the table in the corner and starting on her homework. He lowers his voice and asks, “He hasn’t gone anywhere…like Mum?”
Robbie wonders if Gary knows that Dan seems to havea pretty good idea of what’s going on.
“He’s just upstairs, kiddo. Don’t think he got much sleep last night.” Dan relaxes and Robbie raises his voice to address all three children. “Now, I’m rubbish in the kitchen, but what do we all want for dinner?”
* * *
Gary wakes to the sound of laughter floating up the stairs. Glancing at the clock on the bedside table, he discovers it’s half-past six, and he’s managed to sleep more this afternoon than he has over the last four nights. He stumbles into the bathroom to splash some water on his face before wandering downstairs.
He pauses in the kitchen doorway to see Daniel, Emily and Daisy sitting at the kitchen table with Robbie, who’s currently making walrus faces with two chopsticks.
“The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things.” Robbie says, putting on a silly posh accent, “Of ships and shoes and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings!”
Robbie loses one of the chopsticks then, which only makes all the children laugh harder. Even Gary laughs, and all four of them turn to look at him.
“Daddy waked up!” Daisy cries happily.
“I heard all the silliness going on down here,” Gary grins. “Has Uncle Robbie been spoiling you all? Ordered Chinese, I see.”
“I woulda poisoned them all if I cooked.” Robbie says, and Emily giggles.
“That, unfortunately, is true.” Gary agrees, grabbing himself a plate from the cupboard and sitting down next to Robbie. The kids have a case of the giggles all through the rest of dinner, not helped by the fact that Robbie keeps pulling goofy faces and talking in funny voices.
Robbie does the washing up while Dan and Emily finish homework and Gary gets Daisy’s bedtime routine started. The whole evening has felt more normal than any of the others since Dawn left to stay with her mum. Logically, it makes no sense, since it’s anything but normal for Robbie to show up out of the blue, but when has anything with Robbie ever made logical sense?
Once Daisy is tucked in, Gary returns to the kitchen. Emily and Dan have finished their schoolwork and are bickering about what to watch on the telly in the next room, while Robbie sits at the table, checking email on his laptop. He considers going in to referee the argument between his older children, before deciding they can work it out on their own.
“Tea?” He offers.
“Sounds good,” Rob agrees as he finishes typing something and closes his laptop.
Gary leans against the counter while he waits for the kettle to boil and Rob gets to his feet and comes to stand next to him, bumping his shoulder against Gary’s.
“Thanks for coming. I didn’t know I needed you until you were here.” Gary says quietly, and Robbie can barely hear him over the kettle.
“Anytime, Gaz.” Robbie says, and he means it. He wraps his arms around Gary in a hug, which is all he’s wanted to do since Gary opened the door this afternoon, looking tired and miserable and broken. Gary relaxes against him, his arms sliding around Robbie’s waist to hug back tightly.
“You’re gonna be okay.” Robbie assures him. Gary nods against his shoulder. Robbie wants nothing more than to make sure Gary is okay, to be the one he relies on, the one he needs. He wants to tell Gaz how much he loves him, and wants to show him too. Now isn’t the time for any of that though. Gary isn’t ready to hear it and Robbie isn’t sure how to say it. He presses a (friendly, platonic, comforting) kiss to the side of Gary’s head, like he’s done a thousand times before.
The kettle clicks and Robbie releases Gary reluctantly. They take their tea into the sitting room, where Dan and Emily have agreed on a DVD. He settles into the sofa next to Gary, the other man sitting a little closer than he normally would. Right now, this is enough.
Chapter 2