When we gamble with the world - part 1
Title: When we gamble with the world
Rating: R
Fandom: Take That
Pairing: Robbie/Gary
Genre: romance, angst
Summary: Rob has always thought of the two of them like magnets. When everything is the wrong way round, nothing is going to keep them together. When things are good, though, they just attract, drawing the other in without even trying.
Word count: 14370
Rob’s always been too impulsive for his own good. When everybody else started growing out of jumping off the garden shed roof, Rob just climbed higher and jumped farther, flinging himself into fame without ever considering what might happen next. He hadn’t doubted for one second he’d be famous. He just never really thought about what he’d do once he was. He wonders if he had a way to tell his sixteen-year-old self that famous is just another word for lonely, would it change anything? If he knew then that now he’d be thirty-seven and still single, in and out of rehab more times than he likes to think about and pretty fucking miserable except when he’s working (but sometimes too miserable to even bother to do that much) would he have really turned up at Nigel’s audition that day with big dreams of being a pop star?
Probably. He’s always been pretty fucking self-destructive too.
He doesn’t know if it’s his self-destructive tendencies that make him do it, because he finally has a good thing going so of course he’s got to go and ruin it or if it’s the recklessness he never grew out of telling him of course it’s a good idea or if it really is because he’s just so fucking lonely.
Or maybe it’s none of those things. Maybe it’s just Gary. Rob has always thought of the two of them like magnets. When everything is the wrong way round, nothing is going to keep them together. When things are good, though, they just attract, drawing the other in without even trying. It’s just what they do, they can’t control it, and sometimes, like now, it takes hold of Rob before he can think about the thousands of reasons why pushing Gaz up against the door of his hotel room and kissing him isn’t a good idea.
He can feel Gary’s surprise in the tense set of his shoulders and the way he doesn’t kiss back. They’ve never done this, regardless of the number of times he’s joked about it over the years, and Rob’s certain he’s fucked up again, just when everything is finally back on track.
He’s ready to pull away and scramble for some kind of apology, when Gary finally catches up. Maybe it’s a fucking cliché, but he loses himself in it, can’t tell where he ends and Gary begins and when Gary pulls away and says his name, Rob knows he should say something back.
Only he can’t find the words and then there’s a knock on the door.
“Gaz,” Mark says through the door. “Ready? And is Rob in there with you?”
There’s concern lacing Mark’s voice, and Rob knows they’ve all had a hard time shaking the old days, back when he did fuck off to who-knows-where with no warning.
“Yeah,” Gary says, his voice thick and his eyes still locked with Rob’s.
Timing, Rob thinks a little bitterly as Gary twists to open the door, has never been their strong suit.
* * *
Gary hasn’t ever kissed a man before (hasn’t kissed anyone in ages, for that matter) so when it does happen, he’s surprised as much by the differences as he is by the sameness. Kissing Rob is something new. There’s the drag of stubble against his skin and the broad solidness of Rob where he’s used to smaller, softer curves but it doesn't matter much because kissing is kissing, and just like riding a bicycle it seems he hasn’t forgotten how. His entire world shrinks to the insistent pressure of Rob’s lips against his, his hands on Gary’s hips, pushing him back until he’s trapped, caught between the door of the hotel room and Rob’s body and somewhere in the back of his head Gary knows they’re meant to be leaving soon, but it’s easy to forget when Rob’s tongue is tangled with his.
Rob tastes like toothpaste and Gary has one hand in the back pocket of Rob’s jeans and the other curling gently around his jaw with no memory of how they got there. Rob pushes closer, if that’s even possible, his tongue mapping Gary’s mouth like he needs to memorise it and his hands sliding up Gary’s chest to grip his shoulders.
“Rob,” Gary breathes when they separate, seconds/minutes/eons later, and the other man just grins down at him, dangerous and mischievous and Gary knows he’s lost already. It’s always been that way with Rob; his schemes are as infectious as his grudges. He’s going to surrender to this thing, whatever it is, this feeling that’s been building between them for as long as Gary can remember. It’s going to engulf them, possibly destroy them, and Gary can’t think of anything that terrifies him more.
He’s been on his own since Dawn, their marriage a casualty of those rocky years in the early 2000s, when he felt like his whole world had crumbled around him and he had no way of holding it together. It took them a few years, but he considers her one of his closest friends now, and of course they have Dan to think of.
Rob starts to say something, pulling Gary out of his thoughts, but before he gets the words out there’s a knock on the door and Mark calls through from the corridor, asking about Rob.
Gary says something, he’s not even sure what, because he’s too distracted by the sudden rush of loss he feels when Rob lets go of him and steps away, shoving his hands in his pockets like he doesn’t know what else to do with them.
“Ought to get going,” Rob says flippantly, as if the past five minutes didn’t happen. “Almost show time.”
“Right.” Gary nods. “You go ahead. I’ll…catch up.”
He needs time to clear his head, because he’s got no idea what’s just happened, and he can’t go on stage with his mind scrambled like this.
He takes half an hour to himself, and tries to force the memory of Rob’s lips against his out of his head. It’s damn near impossible, and he knows that they’re going to have to confront it (sooner rather than later), but now isn’t the time, when they’ve got a show to be getting on with.
Somehow, some way, they both make it through the evening. Rob (inevitably, unsurprisingly) swears onstage and Gary knows he himself sounds too rehearsed, but he can barely focus at all with Rob so close, the memory of what happened mere hours earlier running on a loop in his brain, despite his efforts to push it away. He doesn’t know what Rob was thinking, doesn’t know how everything changed so quickly, only that it has changed, irrevocably probably. It feels like a line crossed, one they can’t step back over very easily, if at all.
He lies awake, determined to sleep but suspecting it won’t happen. All he can think about is Rob on the other side of the wall and wonder if he’s sleeping soundly or being kept awake too. Gary’s confused and annoyed and frustrated, because he’s not sure what just happened or why, and he’s temped to go knock on Rob’s door and demand to know everything, but he’s not sure he can trust himself, because Rob’s only kissed him once and already Gary craves it like he needs it to breathe and he can’t remember ever feeling this way before. So he stays in bed and burrows deeper under the duvet like somehow that’s going to protect him from himself.
* * *
It becomes the inevitable elephant in the room. There’s a charge between them that’s almost electric, and Gary feels like a tightly wound spring, full of energy he doesn’t know what to do with. It’s three days before they’re properly alone again, when Rob finds Gary in the dressing room during his customary pre-show wander. It’s hours before anyone will turn up yet; Gary and Rob both like to be there earlier than the rest of the lads.
Rob hovers uncertainly in the doorway, which is so unlike him - usually he sprawls on the couch without preamble - that it sets Gary on edge.
“Coming in or not?” Gary asks, more harshly than he intends to, and Rob flinches.
Rob genuinely looks like he’d rather bolt, but he steps over the threshold anyway. The quiet snick of the door closing somehow manages to increase the tension between them tenfold.
Rob shoves his hands into his pockets and hunches his shoulders, suddenly looking much younger than his thirty-seven years.
This thing between them has always been there, nameless and unacknowledged, and Gary thought they were both on the same page about ignoring it. Until now. Part of Gary wants to shout until he’s hoarse at Rob for bringing this all to the surface.
But that’s not what happens. He’s on his feet and crossing the room without even thinking about it, and Rob’s moving to meet him and they collide and having Rob in his arms feels like the most natural thing in the world, even though it’s really only the second time.
He feels the tension melt out of Rob’s body, and then they’re stumbling backwards, hands roaming and mouths moving and when Gary’s knees hit the sofa they tumble gracelessly down.
Rob grins, his eyes crinkling in the corners, before he leans forward to kiss Gary again, slow and sweet this time.
There’s a voice in Gary’s head screaming what a bad idea this is, that there’s really no going back now, that they could ruin everything in one fell swoop, but it all seems so irrelevant with Rob straddling his lap and kissing him like he’s never going to stop.
They snog like teenagers, daring and tentative in turns, and Gary feels like he’s much too old to be getting a thrill out of the knowledge that anyone could walk into the room at any moment. He grabs fistfuls of Rob’s shirt and hauls him closer, their chests pressed together like they’re trying to fuse into one another, and Rob’s lips on his become hungrier, more demanding.
When Rob pulls away they’re both breathless, and Gary can hear his own heart racing in his hears. He can’t help thinking it’s lucky Rob isn’t wearing his clothes for the show tonight yet, because he looks dishevelled and debauched. Although, to be fair, dishevelled and debauched is really not too far away from how Rob looks on stage anyway.
He knows they should talk about this, but all Rob has to do is quirk his lips up into a half-smile and Gary is diving forward again to press his mouth to Rob’s, all the while thinking that he is incredibly, irrevocably fucked.
* * *
Rob has done plenty of self-destructive things in his life, but out of all of them, he thinks this one might actually take the cake. It’s like walking a tightrope with no safety net and if he wavers just a little bit he’s going to plummet. There’s a twisted part of him that likes this, that craves the adrenaline and the feeling that everything could blow up in his face at any second.
He’s risking his entire life, his career and the band and the relationships he’s spent the past few years working so hard to repair. He’s going to wreck it all in one fell swoop, all because he loves Gaz and he doesn’t know how to go on ignoring it anymore. He doesn’t want to ignore it.
The first time he caught Gaz alone after they kissed, he had intended to talk this out of their systems, to decide it was a mistake and that they wouldn’t go there again, even though it was the exact opposite of what he really wanted. Obviously, that hadn’t happened. He should know better than to trust himself alone with Gary, but he can’t stop seeking him out, cornering him in empty dressing rooms and hotel rooms and even toilets. It’s reckless and it’s stupid but he doesn’t care, because all he can think about is the feel of Gaz’s body pressed against his own, the taste of him, the sound of his breathy sighs and the rough way he says Rob’s name. They fool around like schoolboys, everything hurried and sneaky and desperate.
Rob is an addict, Gary is his drug of choice, and if it comes down to picking between Gaz and everything else, he’s going to pick Gaz every time.
Rob’s not entirely sure where this came from. He thinks he should know, but really it just snuck up on him one day. He knows what people would say, if they knew what was going on between him and Gaz. They’d say he’s been arse over teakettle in love with Gaz since the nineties, that the reason everything had gone to shit was because he couldn’t admit it or Gaz didn’t love him back or whatever other bullshit celebrity reporters come up with. Of course, considering how often he’s made that exact joke, he thinks they might be entitled to believing that. Regardless, they’d be wrong. There’s always been tension between them, and sometimes not even just the bad kind, but they weren’t in love back then. He’d barely liked Gaz, and yeah he’d loved him the same way he’d loved the rest of the lads then (entirely platonic, commiserating and sometimes even a little begrudging) but he hadn’t been in love with him. Which sounds like something out of a bad rom-com, but there is a distinction and it does matter. Besides, Rob knows he wouldn’t have been capable of being in love back then. He was too self-obsessed, too angry, too fucked up. He’d been so young and he hadn’t even liked himself enough to be capable of loving anybody else.
It’s different now, though. He’s grown up (in the ways that matter, anyway) and he’s not the selfish kid he used to be.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Gary says to him. They’re in Rob’s hotel room, killing time before they need to head to the venue (they’ve reached the middle bit of the tour where none of them are quite sure exactly where they are because all the cities have started to blur. Well, Gary probably knows because he always knows the things the rest of them can’t be bothered with) and Gaz has got his laptop out, supposedly replying to some emails but the keyboard has been nearly silent for at least five minutes now.
“Just wondering if I’m crazy.” Rob says flippantly.
“How so?” Gary frowns, concerned instead of amused.
“It’s nothing, Gaz. Forget it.”
“Rob,” Gary says softly and Rob just shakes his head.
“Ignore me.” He insists, because he hardly wants to share any of what’s been going on in his head over the past twenty minutes or so. His head isn’t always the most coherent place, and he doesn’t think telling Gaz that right now he feels like he might be risking too much is going to lead anywhere good.
Gary looks like he’s going to protest, so Rob closes the distance between them, pressing his lips to Gary’s in a barely-there kiss. It’s a tease, really, nothing more, but Gary follows when he starts to pull away, his hands fisting in Rob’s t-shirt and holding him there.
And yeah, Rob’s definitely going to start using this to his advantage.
* * *
Mark wonders if Gaz and Rob know how incredibly obvious they are. Maybe not obvious enough that strangers can tell something is going on, but certainly obvious enough that he can tell. And if Mark has picked up on it, then certainly Jay and Howard will have too.
He’s so used to that strange, buzzy tension between Robbie and Gary that it takes him a few days to notice that it’s gone. He doesn’t think they’re shagging, but he doesn’t have the best radar for that sort of thing either. It’s really just a technicality anyway. Something is going on - a blind man could spot it from fifty feet away. They just light up around each other. It reminds Mark a little bit of the early days, before everything all went to shit, when Rob and Gaz could still tease each other and laugh together and just…gravitated towards one another.
He watches them when it’s not obvious, on stage and in the dressing room and they both look so happy that it almost hurts to see sometimes. Because Mark knows better than anyone that secrets can’t stay buried forever, and this is the kind of secret that will, more likely than not, blow up in their faces, and neither Rob nor Gaz has ever been very good at handling situations like that.
Part of him wants to say something. He’s not sure if he wants to congratulate them for finally getting their heads out of their arses and realising what almost everyone else has been able to see for ages, or if he wants to remind them that they’re grown men, not teenagers anymore, and that their decisions have direct consequences that will effect a lot of people.
He doesn’t say either of those things, though. The first…well, he’s pretty sure the first goes without saying. And he wouldn’t know how to say the second without feeling like a complete hypocrite. Besides, he hardly wants to be the one to burst their bubble. He hasn’t seen either of them look so happy in years, probably, and he can’t think of two people who deserve it more than them.
* * *
Rob hates DVD night. The pressure is even greater than normal, knowing that this particular show will exist for posterity, will be given as a gift at Christmas, probably uploaded onto YouTube, and replayed on the telly. Millions of people will see everything that happens tonight, and it shouldn’t bother him, considering the number of shows he’s done of the years, including some of his own DVDs, but there’s something about knowing he’s going to be staring down a camera that gives him the nervous, clammy feeling he used to soothe with coke or booze or pills.
Somehow, he gets through his set, although he’s certain he swears and he embarrasses a woman on her way to the toilet and he misses out a few lyrics, but then he’s done being alone on that massive stage and he’s climbing up to the top to join the boys and it’s easy then. He’s starting to feel comfortable on stage again, and it’s all down to them. He doesn’t know that he ever wants to be just Robbie Williams ever again. He likes being Mark and Gary and Howard and Jason and Rob. It feels safe.
He comes offstage high on adrenaline, the only high he gets anymore. Gary shoots him a grin as they all dash for the cars, and Rob’s heart jitters inside his chest, and he could blame the high but he knows better.
It seems to take an excruciatingly long time to get back to the hotel, and even longer to get showered and changed, but it’s only half-twelve when he knocks on Gary’s door.
It opens almost immediately and he finds himself being dragged into the room. He kicks the door closed behind him and Gary reaches around him to slide the bolt across.
It’s been hours since he last touched Gaz in a way that wasn’t platonic, and that feels like far to long, so he pulls the other man close. Gary tips his face up to be kissed and Rob is happy to oblige. They kiss lazily, open mouthed, tongues sliding slowly together.
Gary steers them towards the bed, and Rob nearly trips on his own feet walking backwards. Gary laughs and reaches for the hem of Rob’s t-shirt, tugging it up slowly. Rob raises his arms to scramble out of it the rest of the way.
The backs of his knees hit the bed and he tips backwards, bouncing slightly on the mattress. Gary stands over him, smiling in a carefree way Rob has gotten rather attached to.
“You gonna join me or just look?”
“Well, I’m certainly not complaining about the view,” Gary says dryly, but he plants one knee on either side of Rob and leans over him, trailing his lips lightly down Rob’s neck.
Rob slides farther up the bed and Gary follows, planting his hands on the mattress by Rob’s head, bracketing him in. For a long moment, Gary just looks down at him, his lips curving into a smile. Then, he leans down to kiss Rob, more urgently this time.
Rob tugs at the hem of Gary’s t-shirt, rucking it up to get at warm, tanned skin, his hands sliding down across Gary’s back to grip his arse.
“You’re overdressed,” Rob complains, slipping his fingers under the waistband of Gaz’s trackies, his thumb tracing circles on the smooth skin of Gaz’s hip.
Gary grins, and he straightens up, pulling his t-shirt off over his head and tossing it in the general direction of his suitcase. He smirks a little mischievously and bends to trail a line of kisses down the middle of Rob’s chest, his tongue teasing Rob’s skin, making Rob shiver a bit.
It feels as if his body hums being this close to Gary. It’s dangerous, feeling this much, but he doesn’t know how to stop and he’s not sure he would stop if he could.
Despite the adrenaline, they’re both exhausted from the show, too tired to do more than trade hurried hand jobs and sloppy, lazy kisses. It takes almost no time at all and Rob wonders what it would be like not to hurry, to have Gaz all to himself for an unlimited amount of time, to tease and savour and go slow. Maybe after the tour he can find out.
Gary curls up next to him, both of them sleepy and comfortable. Rob’s just starting to drift to sleep when Gary murmurs, “Did you see Dougie and Jay tonight?”
“You really wanna talk about that now?” Rob yawns.
“Don’t know that there’s much to talk about. They’re not shagging, we’d know it if they were.”
“They don’t know we are.”
“Course they do.” Gary says. “They’re just not saying anything.”
“You really think they know?”
“Rob, you know as well as I do that it’s impossible to keep secrets from each other. They probably all twigged to it by the end of the first week.”
“Will they say something, you reckon?”
“Probably not.”
Rob frowns. “Why?”
“Would you want to rock the boat if it was them shagging? Bands have fallen apart over less.”
“Like one member being a complete wanker for the better part of six years?”
“You weren’t a complete wanker.”
“Of course I wasn’t. I was talking about you.” Rob smirks and ducks the pillow Gary tosses at his head. “Course, I’m being unfair. You were all right the first year. It was only the last five you were a wanker.”
“As long as it was only five. There’s a quota, you know. Any more than five years ups you from a wanker to a twat.” Gary deadpans.
“Oh, right.” Rob tries to keep a straight face, but can’t manage it. He starts laughing and Gary grins.
“What’s the level after twat?” Rob smirks.
“I’m sure you know perfectly well what it is.” Gary says, still grinning. “Now stop asking questions and go to sleep. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” Rob teases, and rolls closer to Gaz, throwing an arm across his chest and pulling him in tight. He presses a kiss to the back of Gaz’s neck and drifts off to sleep feeling comfortable and content.
Part 2
Rating: R
Fandom: Take That
Pairing: Robbie/Gary
Genre: romance, angst
Summary: Rob has always thought of the two of them like magnets. When everything is the wrong way round, nothing is going to keep them together. When things are good, though, they just attract, drawing the other in without even trying.
Word count: 14370
Rob’s always been too impulsive for his own good. When everybody else started growing out of jumping off the garden shed roof, Rob just climbed higher and jumped farther, flinging himself into fame without ever considering what might happen next. He hadn’t doubted for one second he’d be famous. He just never really thought about what he’d do once he was. He wonders if he had a way to tell his sixteen-year-old self that famous is just another word for lonely, would it change anything? If he knew then that now he’d be thirty-seven and still single, in and out of rehab more times than he likes to think about and pretty fucking miserable except when he’s working (but sometimes too miserable to even bother to do that much) would he have really turned up at Nigel’s audition that day with big dreams of being a pop star?
Probably. He’s always been pretty fucking self-destructive too.
He doesn’t know if it’s his self-destructive tendencies that make him do it, because he finally has a good thing going so of course he’s got to go and ruin it or if it’s the recklessness he never grew out of telling him of course it’s a good idea or if it really is because he’s just so fucking lonely.
Or maybe it’s none of those things. Maybe it’s just Gary. Rob has always thought of the two of them like magnets. When everything is the wrong way round, nothing is going to keep them together. When things are good, though, they just attract, drawing the other in without even trying. It’s just what they do, they can’t control it, and sometimes, like now, it takes hold of Rob before he can think about the thousands of reasons why pushing Gaz up against the door of his hotel room and kissing him isn’t a good idea.
He can feel Gary’s surprise in the tense set of his shoulders and the way he doesn’t kiss back. They’ve never done this, regardless of the number of times he’s joked about it over the years, and Rob’s certain he’s fucked up again, just when everything is finally back on track.
He’s ready to pull away and scramble for some kind of apology, when Gary finally catches up. Maybe it’s a fucking cliché, but he loses himself in it, can’t tell where he ends and Gary begins and when Gary pulls away and says his name, Rob knows he should say something back.
Only he can’t find the words and then there’s a knock on the door.
“Gaz,” Mark says through the door. “Ready? And is Rob in there with you?”
There’s concern lacing Mark’s voice, and Rob knows they’ve all had a hard time shaking the old days, back when he did fuck off to who-knows-where with no warning.
“Yeah,” Gary says, his voice thick and his eyes still locked with Rob’s.
Timing, Rob thinks a little bitterly as Gary twists to open the door, has never been their strong suit.
* * *
Gary hasn’t ever kissed a man before (hasn’t kissed anyone in ages, for that matter) so when it does happen, he’s surprised as much by the differences as he is by the sameness. Kissing Rob is something new. There’s the drag of stubble against his skin and the broad solidness of Rob where he’s used to smaller, softer curves but it doesn't matter much because kissing is kissing, and just like riding a bicycle it seems he hasn’t forgotten how. His entire world shrinks to the insistent pressure of Rob’s lips against his, his hands on Gary’s hips, pushing him back until he’s trapped, caught between the door of the hotel room and Rob’s body and somewhere in the back of his head Gary knows they’re meant to be leaving soon, but it’s easy to forget when Rob’s tongue is tangled with his.
Rob tastes like toothpaste and Gary has one hand in the back pocket of Rob’s jeans and the other curling gently around his jaw with no memory of how they got there. Rob pushes closer, if that’s even possible, his tongue mapping Gary’s mouth like he needs to memorise it and his hands sliding up Gary’s chest to grip his shoulders.
“Rob,” Gary breathes when they separate, seconds/minutes/eons later, and the other man just grins down at him, dangerous and mischievous and Gary knows he’s lost already. It’s always been that way with Rob; his schemes are as infectious as his grudges. He’s going to surrender to this thing, whatever it is, this feeling that’s been building between them for as long as Gary can remember. It’s going to engulf them, possibly destroy them, and Gary can’t think of anything that terrifies him more.
He’s been on his own since Dawn, their marriage a casualty of those rocky years in the early 2000s, when he felt like his whole world had crumbled around him and he had no way of holding it together. It took them a few years, but he considers her one of his closest friends now, and of course they have Dan to think of.
Rob starts to say something, pulling Gary out of his thoughts, but before he gets the words out there’s a knock on the door and Mark calls through from the corridor, asking about Rob.
Gary says something, he’s not even sure what, because he’s too distracted by the sudden rush of loss he feels when Rob lets go of him and steps away, shoving his hands in his pockets like he doesn’t know what else to do with them.
“Ought to get going,” Rob says flippantly, as if the past five minutes didn’t happen. “Almost show time.”
“Right.” Gary nods. “You go ahead. I’ll…catch up.”
He needs time to clear his head, because he’s got no idea what’s just happened, and he can’t go on stage with his mind scrambled like this.
He takes half an hour to himself, and tries to force the memory of Rob’s lips against his out of his head. It’s damn near impossible, and he knows that they’re going to have to confront it (sooner rather than later), but now isn’t the time, when they’ve got a show to be getting on with.
Somehow, some way, they both make it through the evening. Rob (inevitably, unsurprisingly) swears onstage and Gary knows he himself sounds too rehearsed, but he can barely focus at all with Rob so close, the memory of what happened mere hours earlier running on a loop in his brain, despite his efforts to push it away. He doesn’t know what Rob was thinking, doesn’t know how everything changed so quickly, only that it has changed, irrevocably probably. It feels like a line crossed, one they can’t step back over very easily, if at all.
He lies awake, determined to sleep but suspecting it won’t happen. All he can think about is Rob on the other side of the wall and wonder if he’s sleeping soundly or being kept awake too. Gary’s confused and annoyed and frustrated, because he’s not sure what just happened or why, and he’s temped to go knock on Rob’s door and demand to know everything, but he’s not sure he can trust himself, because Rob’s only kissed him once and already Gary craves it like he needs it to breathe and he can’t remember ever feeling this way before. So he stays in bed and burrows deeper under the duvet like somehow that’s going to protect him from himself.
* * *
It becomes the inevitable elephant in the room. There’s a charge between them that’s almost electric, and Gary feels like a tightly wound spring, full of energy he doesn’t know what to do with. It’s three days before they’re properly alone again, when Rob finds Gary in the dressing room during his customary pre-show wander. It’s hours before anyone will turn up yet; Gary and Rob both like to be there earlier than the rest of the lads.
Rob hovers uncertainly in the doorway, which is so unlike him - usually he sprawls on the couch without preamble - that it sets Gary on edge.
“Coming in or not?” Gary asks, more harshly than he intends to, and Rob flinches.
Rob genuinely looks like he’d rather bolt, but he steps over the threshold anyway. The quiet snick of the door closing somehow manages to increase the tension between them tenfold.
Rob shoves his hands into his pockets and hunches his shoulders, suddenly looking much younger than his thirty-seven years.
This thing between them has always been there, nameless and unacknowledged, and Gary thought they were both on the same page about ignoring it. Until now. Part of Gary wants to shout until he’s hoarse at Rob for bringing this all to the surface.
But that’s not what happens. He’s on his feet and crossing the room without even thinking about it, and Rob’s moving to meet him and they collide and having Rob in his arms feels like the most natural thing in the world, even though it’s really only the second time.
He feels the tension melt out of Rob’s body, and then they’re stumbling backwards, hands roaming and mouths moving and when Gary’s knees hit the sofa they tumble gracelessly down.
Rob grins, his eyes crinkling in the corners, before he leans forward to kiss Gary again, slow and sweet this time.
There’s a voice in Gary’s head screaming what a bad idea this is, that there’s really no going back now, that they could ruin everything in one fell swoop, but it all seems so irrelevant with Rob straddling his lap and kissing him like he’s never going to stop.
They snog like teenagers, daring and tentative in turns, and Gary feels like he’s much too old to be getting a thrill out of the knowledge that anyone could walk into the room at any moment. He grabs fistfuls of Rob’s shirt and hauls him closer, their chests pressed together like they’re trying to fuse into one another, and Rob’s lips on his become hungrier, more demanding.
When Rob pulls away they’re both breathless, and Gary can hear his own heart racing in his hears. He can’t help thinking it’s lucky Rob isn’t wearing his clothes for the show tonight yet, because he looks dishevelled and debauched. Although, to be fair, dishevelled and debauched is really not too far away from how Rob looks on stage anyway.
He knows they should talk about this, but all Rob has to do is quirk his lips up into a half-smile and Gary is diving forward again to press his mouth to Rob’s, all the while thinking that he is incredibly, irrevocably fucked.
* * *
Rob has done plenty of self-destructive things in his life, but out of all of them, he thinks this one might actually take the cake. It’s like walking a tightrope with no safety net and if he wavers just a little bit he’s going to plummet. There’s a twisted part of him that likes this, that craves the adrenaline and the feeling that everything could blow up in his face at any second.
He’s risking his entire life, his career and the band and the relationships he’s spent the past few years working so hard to repair. He’s going to wreck it all in one fell swoop, all because he loves Gaz and he doesn’t know how to go on ignoring it anymore. He doesn’t want to ignore it.
The first time he caught Gaz alone after they kissed, he had intended to talk this out of their systems, to decide it was a mistake and that they wouldn’t go there again, even though it was the exact opposite of what he really wanted. Obviously, that hadn’t happened. He should know better than to trust himself alone with Gary, but he can’t stop seeking him out, cornering him in empty dressing rooms and hotel rooms and even toilets. It’s reckless and it’s stupid but he doesn’t care, because all he can think about is the feel of Gaz’s body pressed against his own, the taste of him, the sound of his breathy sighs and the rough way he says Rob’s name. They fool around like schoolboys, everything hurried and sneaky and desperate.
Rob is an addict, Gary is his drug of choice, and if it comes down to picking between Gaz and everything else, he’s going to pick Gaz every time.
Rob’s not entirely sure where this came from. He thinks he should know, but really it just snuck up on him one day. He knows what people would say, if they knew what was going on between him and Gaz. They’d say he’s been arse over teakettle in love with Gaz since the nineties, that the reason everything had gone to shit was because he couldn’t admit it or Gaz didn’t love him back or whatever other bullshit celebrity reporters come up with. Of course, considering how often he’s made that exact joke, he thinks they might be entitled to believing that. Regardless, they’d be wrong. There’s always been tension between them, and sometimes not even just the bad kind, but they weren’t in love back then. He’d barely liked Gaz, and yeah he’d loved him the same way he’d loved the rest of the lads then (entirely platonic, commiserating and sometimes even a little begrudging) but he hadn’t been in love with him. Which sounds like something out of a bad rom-com, but there is a distinction and it does matter. Besides, Rob knows he wouldn’t have been capable of being in love back then. He was too self-obsessed, too angry, too fucked up. He’d been so young and he hadn’t even liked himself enough to be capable of loving anybody else.
It’s different now, though. He’s grown up (in the ways that matter, anyway) and he’s not the selfish kid he used to be.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Gary says to him. They’re in Rob’s hotel room, killing time before they need to head to the venue (they’ve reached the middle bit of the tour where none of them are quite sure exactly where they are because all the cities have started to blur. Well, Gary probably knows because he always knows the things the rest of them can’t be bothered with) and Gaz has got his laptop out, supposedly replying to some emails but the keyboard has been nearly silent for at least five minutes now.
“Just wondering if I’m crazy.” Rob says flippantly.
“How so?” Gary frowns, concerned instead of amused.
“It’s nothing, Gaz. Forget it.”
“Rob,” Gary says softly and Rob just shakes his head.
“Ignore me.” He insists, because he hardly wants to share any of what’s been going on in his head over the past twenty minutes or so. His head isn’t always the most coherent place, and he doesn’t think telling Gaz that right now he feels like he might be risking too much is going to lead anywhere good.
Gary looks like he’s going to protest, so Rob closes the distance between them, pressing his lips to Gary’s in a barely-there kiss. It’s a tease, really, nothing more, but Gary follows when he starts to pull away, his hands fisting in Rob’s t-shirt and holding him there.
And yeah, Rob’s definitely going to start using this to his advantage.
* * *
Mark wonders if Gaz and Rob know how incredibly obvious they are. Maybe not obvious enough that strangers can tell something is going on, but certainly obvious enough that he can tell. And if Mark has picked up on it, then certainly Jay and Howard will have too.
He’s so used to that strange, buzzy tension between Robbie and Gary that it takes him a few days to notice that it’s gone. He doesn’t think they’re shagging, but he doesn’t have the best radar for that sort of thing either. It’s really just a technicality anyway. Something is going on - a blind man could spot it from fifty feet away. They just light up around each other. It reminds Mark a little bit of the early days, before everything all went to shit, when Rob and Gaz could still tease each other and laugh together and just…gravitated towards one another.
He watches them when it’s not obvious, on stage and in the dressing room and they both look so happy that it almost hurts to see sometimes. Because Mark knows better than anyone that secrets can’t stay buried forever, and this is the kind of secret that will, more likely than not, blow up in their faces, and neither Rob nor Gaz has ever been very good at handling situations like that.
Part of him wants to say something. He’s not sure if he wants to congratulate them for finally getting their heads out of their arses and realising what almost everyone else has been able to see for ages, or if he wants to remind them that they’re grown men, not teenagers anymore, and that their decisions have direct consequences that will effect a lot of people.
He doesn’t say either of those things, though. The first…well, he’s pretty sure the first goes without saying. And he wouldn’t know how to say the second without feeling like a complete hypocrite. Besides, he hardly wants to be the one to burst their bubble. He hasn’t seen either of them look so happy in years, probably, and he can’t think of two people who deserve it more than them.
* * *
Rob hates DVD night. The pressure is even greater than normal, knowing that this particular show will exist for posterity, will be given as a gift at Christmas, probably uploaded onto YouTube, and replayed on the telly. Millions of people will see everything that happens tonight, and it shouldn’t bother him, considering the number of shows he’s done of the years, including some of his own DVDs, but there’s something about knowing he’s going to be staring down a camera that gives him the nervous, clammy feeling he used to soothe with coke or booze or pills.
Somehow, he gets through his set, although he’s certain he swears and he embarrasses a woman on her way to the toilet and he misses out a few lyrics, but then he’s done being alone on that massive stage and he’s climbing up to the top to join the boys and it’s easy then. He’s starting to feel comfortable on stage again, and it’s all down to them. He doesn’t know that he ever wants to be just Robbie Williams ever again. He likes being Mark and Gary and Howard and Jason and Rob. It feels safe.
He comes offstage high on adrenaline, the only high he gets anymore. Gary shoots him a grin as they all dash for the cars, and Rob’s heart jitters inside his chest, and he could blame the high but he knows better.
It seems to take an excruciatingly long time to get back to the hotel, and even longer to get showered and changed, but it’s only half-twelve when he knocks on Gary’s door.
It opens almost immediately and he finds himself being dragged into the room. He kicks the door closed behind him and Gary reaches around him to slide the bolt across.
It’s been hours since he last touched Gaz in a way that wasn’t platonic, and that feels like far to long, so he pulls the other man close. Gary tips his face up to be kissed and Rob is happy to oblige. They kiss lazily, open mouthed, tongues sliding slowly together.
Gary steers them towards the bed, and Rob nearly trips on his own feet walking backwards. Gary laughs and reaches for the hem of Rob’s t-shirt, tugging it up slowly. Rob raises his arms to scramble out of it the rest of the way.
The backs of his knees hit the bed and he tips backwards, bouncing slightly on the mattress. Gary stands over him, smiling in a carefree way Rob has gotten rather attached to.
“You gonna join me or just look?”
“Well, I’m certainly not complaining about the view,” Gary says dryly, but he plants one knee on either side of Rob and leans over him, trailing his lips lightly down Rob’s neck.
Rob slides farther up the bed and Gary follows, planting his hands on the mattress by Rob’s head, bracketing him in. For a long moment, Gary just looks down at him, his lips curving into a smile. Then, he leans down to kiss Rob, more urgently this time.
Rob tugs at the hem of Gary’s t-shirt, rucking it up to get at warm, tanned skin, his hands sliding down across Gary’s back to grip his arse.
“You’re overdressed,” Rob complains, slipping his fingers under the waistband of Gaz’s trackies, his thumb tracing circles on the smooth skin of Gaz’s hip.
Gary grins, and he straightens up, pulling his t-shirt off over his head and tossing it in the general direction of his suitcase. He smirks a little mischievously and bends to trail a line of kisses down the middle of Rob’s chest, his tongue teasing Rob’s skin, making Rob shiver a bit.
It feels as if his body hums being this close to Gary. It’s dangerous, feeling this much, but he doesn’t know how to stop and he’s not sure he would stop if he could.
Despite the adrenaline, they’re both exhausted from the show, too tired to do more than trade hurried hand jobs and sloppy, lazy kisses. It takes almost no time at all and Rob wonders what it would be like not to hurry, to have Gaz all to himself for an unlimited amount of time, to tease and savour and go slow. Maybe after the tour he can find out.
Gary curls up next to him, both of them sleepy and comfortable. Rob’s just starting to drift to sleep when Gary murmurs, “Did you see Dougie and Jay tonight?”
“You really wanna talk about that now?” Rob yawns.
“Don’t know that there’s much to talk about. They’re not shagging, we’d know it if they were.”
“They don’t know we are.”
“Course they do.” Gary says. “They’re just not saying anything.”
“You really think they know?”
“Rob, you know as well as I do that it’s impossible to keep secrets from each other. They probably all twigged to it by the end of the first week.”
“Will they say something, you reckon?”
“Probably not.”
Rob frowns. “Why?”
“Would you want to rock the boat if it was them shagging? Bands have fallen apart over less.”
“Like one member being a complete wanker for the better part of six years?”
“You weren’t a complete wanker.”
“Of course I wasn’t. I was talking about you.” Rob smirks and ducks the pillow Gary tosses at his head. “Course, I’m being unfair. You were all right the first year. It was only the last five you were a wanker.”
“As long as it was only five. There’s a quota, you know. Any more than five years ups you from a wanker to a twat.” Gary deadpans.
“Oh, right.” Rob tries to keep a straight face, but can’t manage it. He starts laughing and Gary grins.
“What’s the level after twat?” Rob smirks.
“I’m sure you know perfectly well what it is.” Gary says, still grinning. “Now stop asking questions and go to sleep. We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”
“Aye aye, Captain.” Rob teases, and rolls closer to Gaz, throwing an arm across his chest and pulling him in tight. He presses a kiss to the back of Gaz’s neck and drifts off to sleep feeling comfortable and content.
Part 2