For All I Thought I'd Ever Need [1/2]
Title: For All I Thought I'd Ever Need
Author/Artist: Jen santixcore
Bands: The Academy Is/Cobra Starship. (and appearances from like every other FBR band)
Pairing(s): William/Gabe.
Prompt assigned: Fairy Tales: Wicked Step Relatives
Word count: 10,973
Rating: PG-13-ish.
Summary: In which William is an awkward optimist who loves Christmas, owns a bookstore, and has two abusive step brothers who give him sort of a Cinderella reputation. Gabe is adopted with a family who loves him and William is almost as envious as he is amazed. A holiday-infused love ensues, and William renews his confidences in the power of a close-knit family.
written for bandom_solstice.
William Beckett is sort of a Christmas decorations junkie.
He only sincerely notices it once a year, when he resurrects the boxes and boxes of bulbs and figurines and lights from the crawlspace above his attic apartment and hauls them downstairs into the store, where he’ll spend a few days decorating after hours until it looks less like a corner bookstore and more like a homemade ornament shop, and the only way one can determine precisely what the store has to offer is by the sign outside the door that reads Prince Street Books. And it’s not the pure number of decorations he owns that’s most alarming; it’s the variety, the way each ornament possesses its own story of how it came to reside in the crawlspace above William’s apartment, and how William can speak for just about all of them individually. This snowman sculpture I made in third grade crafts class and the glue smear on its face is because of the kid next to me trying to squeeze the life out of a new bottle of glue or I found this ornament on someone’s tree laid out on the sidewalk for the garbage truck to take away the day after New Years.
When it comes down to the matter, William sort of has a thing for Christmas in general, and the entire concept of the holidays has always and will always have a place in his heart to romp around, flourish, and spread to other hearts as it does so, because William never allows any of his holiday cheer stay bottled up in his heart for very long. He finds it readily being released through spacious grins and smooth-vocaled carols, sentimental holiday wishes and lavish seasonal decorating.
And customers always tend to take notice of William's excessively contagious holiday spirit, and while it's not unwelcome, it's still passed off as a front, and they tend to say things along the lines of, "No one, could be that cheerful under such ill-fated circumstances as his."
By ill-fated, they’re almost always referring to Mike and Tom, that for the past six years have played the role of William’s vindictive step brothers, and from the time when William was just a sixteen-year-old reclusive bookworm merely trying to finish high school, they’ve strived to cruelly control every ounce of William’s self and existence, because they know they can, and because in some sick way, it gives them a sense of power they otherwise wouldn’t have.
It comes as no surprise that they’d prey on someone as vulnerable as their younger stepbrother, because with Mike and Tom, everything ends up coming down to power or money, from allowing William to run their deceased stepdad’s old bookstore to running their own underground drug dealership; it’s all sort of about those two main principles.
And even though William may not live in the clichéd sense of the word happiness, he’s not exactly miserable, despite widespread belief. Because with William, his optimism is borderline disgusting, and everything and everyone in the world is some form of beautiful. He takes every bad experience and turns it into an essential life lesson; makes sure no good day is taken for granted and no bad day ends without a solid reason to hope for a better day tomorrow, and this hope is always his driving incentive to always look at life with a limitless, bright perspective.
And even though William is without a doubt extremely excluded from the world in his lonely attic apartment and has every reason to despise humanity while his brothers rob him of his earnings and try to rob him of his spirit, he doesn’t despise anything or anyone, doesn’t act lonely or wounded and doesn’t try to doll himself up as another tragic casualty of abuse. Instead, he applies a fresh coat of concealer over the bruises covering his skin each morning, musters up one of his contagious smiles, and hopes to God today will be the day someone will whisk him away from his living hell that he’s been desperately trying to sugar coat.
*
Two weeks until Christmas and William is placing the final touches on the miniature artificial Christmas tree perched atop the sales counter of the corner bookstore of which he’s the primary owner, forking profits over to Tom and Mike like it doesn’t pain him to do so (even thought it really does). Either way, William takes care of the store as if it were his own Fortune 500 Company, mimicking his father’s thoughtfulness toward every book and magazine and every free drop of coffee in the three coffee pots that are always filled with three different flavors of fresh coffee every morning.
The day’s routine is not much different than the ones before it, slow, easy mornings swelling to successful, hectic lunch hours, and William is certain Christmastime in his little bookstore is one of the best times of the year, not only because of the significant rise in sales, but because the atmosphere is somehow warmer, smells like pine and gingerbread air fresheners and happiness, and as he’s sitting balanced on the edge of the counter, swinging his skinny legs youthfully over the edge, he can’t think of anywhere he’d rather be than right here.
A new shipment of assorted books that had arrived the night before is waiting for William in the back room, and he takes advantage of the sluggish afternoon to begin placing them on the shelves, working his way down the rows of shelves from Albom to Wilde, going to great lengths to be sure that each author lines up where they fall in the alphabet and that each title is proudly displayed. As he does this, improvised caroling soars from somewhere in his heart and escapes from between his cherry lips and it’s not as much for the sake of the holidays as much as it’s for the sake of his sanity, because singing gives William a talent beyond stocking shelves and masking misery, and although he doesn’t sing for other people necessarily, he sings for everything else that makes him happy. He sings for the books he cherishes and the guitar he awkwardly strums sometimes; sings for flavored coffee and re-runs of Friends and everything that’s ever made him smile.
And when William sings, it takes him somewhere far more profound than anything in the physical realm of trivial assholes, somewhere you can’t really explain but you know it exists because you feel it, and you’re sorry for anyone who can’t. In this state, he has trouble grasping what things are in his head and what things are surrounding his real physical self, so when the bells above the front door emit a soft jingle, it doesn’t really register correctly in his head as he switches from “Jingle Bell Rock” a one-man “Baby It’s Cold Outside” that he’s no longer the only person in the store.
It doesn’t register fully until the boy who just strolled in is snaking his purple-hooded head around the rows of shelves, pausing for a second to be captivated by William’s voice before speaking up in a wary, tense voice.
“-Excuse me.”
As soon as the boy opens his mouth, William’s stomach does a leap up into his throat, obstructing his airway so his singing is cut off immediately as he wheels around to face whoever just walked in, paralyzed with mortification as he does so.
"Sorry. I didn’t mean to like, sneak up on you like that,” the boy begins apologizing, embarrassed himself, as if he were disturbing something sacred. “I just wanted ask if you knew where I could find a certain book.”
William tries to slow his heart rate down as he assures him, “No, it’s totally fine. I just didn’t know you were there and it’s sort of embarrassing to be caught in a mediocre round of caroling, but what book were you-“
“-Mediocre?” The boy repeats this, mulling it over behind his eyes for a few seconds before opting to say “Not at all. Mediocre is when you suck. You don’t suck.”
William’s eyes fall to the dusty maroon carpet and he smiles meekly through the hair plunging into his eyes, but doesn’t dwell on it because he’s normally the one handing out compliments, not receiving them, and he doesn’t exactly know how to act, so he says, “What book were you looking for, exactly?”
The guy looks to the ceiling, as if the answer or the book itself is to be right there glued to the tiles, and when it’s not, he snaps his fingers a few times as if to demand it out of his head. “The author starts with a P, I remember that.”
William leads him to the P section in fiction, and at least they’ve narrowed it down to a letter rather than an entire store.
“I’m Gabe,” the boy offers, as if his name is a sort of replacement for the author of the book in question.
“William,” William says warmly with one of his total William grins, one of those full-faced I-just-got-my-braces-off grins that are all over orthodontist office walls.
“William, cool,” Gabe smiles too, and both ends are still a little on the uncomfortable side, especially now that names are out of the way and Gabe still doesn’t remember the book he’s looking for. “Let me text my brother and ask him who his favorite author is.”
The reply is quick one, and when Gabe opens it up on his phone, he chuckles softly to himself like you’re fucking kidding me. I can’t pronounce that. He tries, and stumbles. “Chuck Pal-ahhh-nee-uck?”
William shakes his head in amusement, traces his finger over a row of spines and pulls a handful of books off the shelves and holds them up for Gabe to examine. “These?”
“Yeah, those,” Gabe says, relieved, taking the books from William and shuffling through each, picking out the only one Ryan doesn’t own and waving it triumphantly in the air. “Cool. Thanks.”
“I’ll ring you up,” William offers, moving off toward the register with Gabe trailing intrigued behind him.
“These decorations are really nice,” Gabe observes as William scans the book.
“Yeah? Thanks,” William says, and then “I have a thing for Christmas decorations.”
“I’d say so,” Gabe laughs. He takes a closer look at the miniature tree on the counter, eyeing a picture frame ornament holding a photograph of a middle aged guy and a boy of maybe eleven or twelve, both of them proudly displaying freshly caught fish and flaunting grins that look similar to one another, and familiar. “Is that you?”
William nods and leans over the counter to look at the ornament as well. “And my dad. He took me on a fishing trip the summer he and my mom split up. He and I were really close, but he died around the time of my eighteenth birthday and I sort of threw my college dreams out the window to keep this place afloat for him, so to speak.”
"Oh. I'm sorry. That’s really nice of you though. He looks just like you," Gabe notes, gaze fixed softly on their matching hazelnut eyes, their light russet hair both shaggy against their identically strong bone structure.
“Does he? I get that a lot,” William answers absently as he rummages behind the counter for a gift bag and some tissue paper. “This is for a gift, right?”
Gabe nods.
“You don’t look like much of a present wrapper,” William observes, eying Gabe’s awkward fingers tugging on purple hoodie sleeves.
“Not really,” he admits.
“Want me to wrap it up for you?”
And Gabe takes him up on the offer not only because he’s pretty much a lousy gift wrapper, but because this William guy is sort of intriguing, and any time stalled to continue talking to him is more than welcome wholeheartedly.
“So you run this place alone now?” Gabe asks as he watches William’s skeletal fingers neatly crease the tissue paper around the book, taping it down with the strips of tape temporarily resting on his wrist.
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“Yeah. Sort of,” William confirms. “Because while I take care of it, I have two stepbrothers that keep most of the profits, and if I don’t pay up, they have the legal rights to sell the store. So yeah, sort of.”
“That sucks,” Gabe says, and then sighs at his insincerity and tries to recover. “I take it your dad remarried, then?”
“Unfortunately.”
By this time, the book is flawlessly wrapped by William’s steady hand and he’s holding it out to Gabe with a little smile.
Gabe grins wildly. “Thank you.”
“You should stop by again.” William’s smooth voice resonates through the air in soft, hopeful fragments, and Gabe’s figuratively trying to catch each one to hold onto and carry with him on his way out the door.
“Yeah. Yeah, definitely For sure,” he stumbles awkwardly, taking Ryan’s gift and stuffing it under his arm. He holds his hand out inelegantly to William, who takes it and gives it a promising shake, and he notices Gabe’s hands are sort of rough in the attractively callused sort of way, and he could definitely get used to having them around.
“Cool. Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah. Thanks. Back at you.”
And when the bells jingle above the door again and Gabe is out of sight, William is feeling more holiday cheer than he thinks he’s had in one sitting since his dad passed away, and as he returns to stocking the shelves again, he doesn’t care who hears him sing, just that he’s singing because it feels good and he feels good and something’s finally completely and sincerely right in his heart and head.
*
A week and a half until Christmas and William hasn’t seen much of Mike or Tom in the past few days, for which he’s grateful, so it’s almost surprising and fully unsolicited to see the two of them waltz through the front door of the store after closing as if they own the place (even though they kind of do) and rest their dirty elbows on the counter like they’re allowed to (even though they can do pretty much whatever the fuck they want).
“What?” William snaps from behind Cat’s Cradle, because he’s really not in the mood for their bullshit right now.
Tom reaches over to tap William on the cheek swiftly with his open palm. “Don’t get smart.”
William flinches back, sighs, and stubbornly turns back to his book, knowing damn well they’re here to collect money they didn’t earn and not feeling generous enough today to just hand it over.
“Cough it up, fucking faggot,” Mike hisses after a few moments of a sort of western showdown between the hostility in all three of their pairs of eyes.
William says, “You need it that bad? Did your shady business ventures finally nip you in the ass, then? Well-“
But Tom’s fist collides with William’s defined cheekbone before he can finish, and that’s all the further negotiating that needs to be done before William is storming out the door and climbing the three flights of fire escape stairs to reach his shitty apartment as the chill of the December wind blows an additional sting over his throbbing face.
It’s warm in his apartment because he left the space heater on high all afternoon, but he can’t really appreciate it with an ice pack obstructing the injured side of his face, chillingly and futilely trying to reduce the swelling so questions aren’t asked and hearts aren’t broken.
*
One week until Christmas and William is on his sort-of lunch break, a turkey and cheese sandwich resting on his lap as he sits bored at the register with A Separate Peace propped open with his coffee mug.
He’s totally not expecting to see Gabe strolling through the door unannounced, overwhelmingly stunning in tight-fitted black jeans and a bright t-shirt and even brighter jacket, and William thinks he looks sort of like a bowl of fruity pebbles in sort of the best way possible.
“Hey William,” Gabe slurs enthusiastically as he props himself up against the counter with a charismatic little smirk. “Busy?”
William’s stomach does a flip-flopping motion and he swallows another bite of sandwich to try and calm it down. “Sort of.”
Gabe surveys the store dramatically with the side of his hand pressed to his brow line. “Maybe I’m optically impaired, but it doesn’t look busy to me.”
William snorts under his breath, amused. “I guess today’s another slow day. Yesterday was good though.”
“So if I asked you to lunch with me, would you be able to leave your busy post for an hour?”
William blushes ferociously and really, really wants to accept, but if Mike and Tom found out, they’d flip shit, because lunchtime is the biggest customer traffic during the holidays since everyone tends to shop on their lunch break, meaning William can’t take one for himself. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
William sighs meekly, “My brothers.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know. Not here.”
Gabe shrugs. “Then how would they ever find out if you left for a little bit? Seriously Will, it’s not like you’re a slave or anything.”
William shakes his head when Gabe says this, because he’s fucking wrong, and because sometimes, William feels more like a slave than anything. With Mike and Tom, he doesn’t feel like an employee and most certainly not like a brother.
“I can’t,” William says again.
Gabe’s enthusiasm deflates, his shoulders sagging and a desperate pout forming across his thin pink lips. “Your brothers must be pretty powerful if you’d rather sit here alone than go on a date. They must get to you.”
“Date?” William repeats incredulously.
“Yeah, sure, why not? Dates are cool.” Gabe confirms with a little smile, hopping up to sit himself on the counter. “Are you turning down my date proposal?”
William’s heart would probably eat itself inside out if he turned Gabe down, so he allows Gabe to pull a piece of computer paper from the printer, remove the black sharpie lodged in his back pocket and write neatly TOOK LUNCH. BACK AT ONE.
Gabe puts the sign in the window for William, and traces a checkmark in the air with his index finger. “Now you have no excuses. Come on, I know somewhere I think you might like.”
*
The city is alive with the idea of Christmas and William can feel it in the way Gabe is holding his hand as they weave through the sidewalk crowded with warm hearts and paper shopping bags and Christmas carols resonating from stores and small groups of carolers.
A few blocks away is a café with a quaint red and white color scheme, squished between a cell phone store on one side and a pawn shop on the other. Despite the odd location, it’s sort of cute, and Gabe pulls William’s hand through the door like he’s the most important thing in the world and sits him down at a table with a perfect view of the city outside.
William insists he’s not hungry, and instead orders a flavored coffee while Gabe asks for soup and a grilled vegetable sandwich.
Waiting for the food to come, William says, “This place is nice.”
“Is it? It’s my favorite,” Gabe croons. “I hope it’s worth taking off for.”
William nods affirmatively. “If Tom and Mike found out though-“
“-What the hell is with you and your preoccupation with your brothers and how they run your life?” Gabe snaps, and when William flinches back in apprehension, Gabe allows his frustration to taper off. “I’m sorry. So I’m guessing they’re really that bad?”
“Yeah,” William mutters into his hands folded neatly on the tabletop. “They’re really that bad.” He doesn’t say anything else, and Gabe doesn’t ask, and for that he’s grateful.
It’s silent between their bodies until the food arrives, neither really knowing whether their conversation topics are saying too much or too little, if they’re too awkward or too personal or impersonal or just ridiculous in nature.
William steals a few of the chips off of Gabe’s sandwich plate when he assumes his gaze is turned elsewhere, but Gabe catches him by the wrist red handed and jokes, “So much for you not being hungry.”
William states simply, “I changed my mind,” and Gabe releases his grip on William’s wrist to allow him to nourish his emaciated body.
Gabe says, “You can have half of my sandwich if you want it.”
William says, “No. I already ate.”
“I took you to lunch in hopes you’d actually eat something.”
William holds up his coffee with a smile.
“That’s hardly nourishment. Seriously, how much coffee do you drink?” Gabe asks in disbelief.
William reaches across the table to swipe some more of Gabe’s chips, jamming them between his lips before stating, “Uh-nuff.”
Gabe rolls his eyes, however smiling, “The least I can do is donate the rest of my chips to your mouth. You’re entirely too thin.”
“I luff muh girlush figyuh,” William protests with his mouth full of chip fragments.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full. That’s not what girls do.”
William makes a kind of hmph noise and dramatically sucks a few more chips into his mouth before smirking, “U’m uh rehbuhl.”
“You’re about as rebellious as a herd of cattle, m’dear,” Gabe laughs. “You’re too obedient to be a rebel.”
“You would be too…” he trails off, hands wrapped firmly around his coffee mug, allowing the warmth to radiate through his body. He doesn’t say more, because the last thing he wants is sympathy. He’s just stating, not fishing.
“Sorry,” Gabe mutters, acknowledging his mistake and trying to cover it up with the conversational topic of “Well I’m adopted.”
William nods with a weak scowl, jadedly mumbling, “Adopted. Cool.”
Gabe sighs in defeat. “Hey, I’m sorry. I tend to dwell sometimes. Hey Will. Hey, smile, okay?”
William tries.
He fails.
Gabe finishes the last bite of his sandwich and stands up to pay rather than try to handle his latest fuck up in the middle of a crowded café.
When he comes back, William is still parked in his seat where Gabe left him, eyes searching for reasons not to be offended and coming up short.
“Will,” Gabe hums, and William almost wants to tell him no one can call him “Will” but his dad, but doesn’t, because corrections lead to arguments and arguments lead to leaving and even though William’s upset, he doesn’t want to be left alone again. Gabe holds his hand out. “Come on. Let’s walk.”
William takes Gabe’s hand awkwardly and allows Gabe to pull him from the chair he originally aimed to stubbornly glue himself to. He submits to being lead outside and through the holiday music and crowds and shopping bags and smog, block after block until Gabe tows him into a bench at the park across from William’s bookstore.
He pulls William’s face up to correspond with the position with his own, callused fingers lightly grazing William’s porcelain chin. “Talk to me.”
William inhales, taking in the way Gabe unexpectedly smells like a Christmas tree and mint and a dusty attic, and instead of spilling the hatred he has for Mike and Tom, he spills the love he has for Gabe’s scent.
“You smell like Christmas and I love it.”
Gabe wraps his arms around William and inhales into William’s tattered hoodie, mumbling into his shoulder, “You smell like books and coffee and love and you wouldn’t be any less special if you smelled like shit.”
This produces a smile on William’s part, and he hugs Gabe back with all the strength his fragile arms can assemble. “So, you say you’re adopted?”
Gabe grins. “Yeah. And the only way you’d ever know is because my family collectively could resemble a United Nations meeting. My four brothers and I are all adopted. I was born in Uruguay, my brother Alex was born in Spain, Travis is partly African-American, and Pete and Ryan, they’re just different. My adopted mother is completely Italian and my adopted father is originally from India. They’ve had their eyes set on a diverse family ever since they met on a foreign exchange trip. The treat us as if we were their own, though. They always have. And we’ve always treated them like they were our own parents. It’s really unique, I think.”
William smiles, a little envious, but sincere. “I’d love a family like that.”
“Yeah? I love my family more than anything, I think. It’s sort of like a bunch of misfit souls coming together and successfully finding somewhere they mutually belong. We make ‘never a dull moment’ an understatement.”
William says, “That must be nice,” and feels ashamed to have to call Mike and Tom his only family. He’d rather say he has no family at all, because Mike and Tom, they’re not family. Family isn’t cruelty and mutilation and greed. Family should be about mutual generosity and love and respect.
“It’s cool to have them all home for the holidays,” Gabe goes on. “Ryan and Pete are married and Alex and Travis are off doing something with music and I’ve been busy studying design. We don’t get together as often now that we’re all grown up and of the house.”
“That’s what the holidays are for,” William says, and means it despite not really living it.
“I agree,” Gabe grins, taking one of William’s pale hands and lacing it up in his own. “Sometimes though, it’s also nice to get away and get to know someone new.”
“Oh?” William says absentmindedly, busily tracing circles on the back of Gabe’s hand with the fingers that are free, having never felt someone else’s hand in his own like this, but not exactly dismissing it. It feels nice, this skin-to-skin, heart-to-heart kind of intimacy.
“Yeah,” Gabe says with conviction. “Someone with a billboard smile who smells like books and can pronounce ridiculous last names like a pro.”
William’s heart soars, wide-grinned and hopeful-eyed and boundless and flawless and he flings himself into Gabe’s arms without even second-guessing his spontaneity, and it just feels right, this closeness between him and someone he could still sort of consider a stranger. This neon-colored, awkward, sweet-hearted stranger that’s inviting him into his arms, his heart, and his space that for the time being is their space.
But then William remembers the watch wrapped tight around his wrist, counting down to the moment where William has to leave this sample of perfection and return across the street to books and a living hell, and when the hour hand is perfectly aligned with the 1, William says, “I have to go.”
Gabe sighs, “I was expecting that.”
“I’m sorry,” William says desperately, hands still intertwined with Gabe’s.
Gabe says as he stands William up, “It’d be cool if I could get your number.”
“Give me your phone.”
Gabe pulls it from his hoodie pocket and places it in William’s open palm, who navigates quickly through the menus and punches his number it, a little smiley face beside his name.
Gabe asks, “Can I walk you back?”
William bites his lip apprehensively. “It’s just across the street.”
“Did you not pay attention in kindergarten safety class?” Gabe asks with a smirk. He takes William’s hand again. “Always hold hands while crossing the street.”
William bites his lip. With his luck, his absence didn’t go unnoticed and he’s not going to be left off easy, and he doesn’t want Gabe to have to see just how bad his stepbrothers can get when William dismisses their authority.
But Gabe insists and William accepts because he’s not ready to release quite yet.
However, William isn’t at all surprised to see Tom sitting on the counter as they walk in, dirty sneakers polluting the polished wood as he swings them back and forth, furious. The makeshift sign is clenched in his fist and his eyes are burning through William so strongly that it actually hurts already.
Before William can tell Gabe to leave, Tom leaps from the countertop and storms over to where William is standing paralyzed with Gabe’s hand still hooked around his waist, making idle circles into his hip.
Tom stares at Gabe, fucking livid, and sneers, “Leave. Now.”
Gabe stands his ground and snaps, “No.”
“Gabe. Just go,” William pleads, because as much as he wants Gabe to stay and protect him, he doesn’t want Gabe to see him at his most vulnerable.
Gabe looks to him desperately, says firmly, “I’m. Not. Leaving. You.”
Tom takes an open palm and shoves Gabe’s shoulder back a little. “Get out. Or I’ll have the police out here for trespassing.”
Gabe releases his grip on William and uses both hands to shove Tom a few feet backwards, almost slamming him into the counter.
William screams Gabe’s name and pulls him back before Tom has a chance to react and literally pushing him to the door. “Leave. I’ll be okay. Just go.”
Gabe’s eyes scream desperation and William swears he’s nearly in tears. “I’ll call you,” he whispers low enough to bypass Tom’s ears.
William nods, tries to kiss Gabe’s cheek, but he’s gone and out the door before William can say a word, leaving him alone with Tom at his most enraged.
“Tell me,” Tom spits. “Exactly when did I tell you that you could take lunch?”
“Never,” William mutters to his shoestrings.
Tom lifts the sign from the counter, balls it up, and tosses it in William’s direction. “Then what the fuck is this?!”
William is silent.
“Answer me,” Tom demands, stepping so close to William that William can feel heat radiating off of his furious body.
“I-”
But Tom’s fist collides with William’s jaw before he can get past the first word, and William collapses in agony to the dusty floor with a sickening thud, and Tom’s towering above him shouting “Get up, you fucking faggot. Get the fuck up and fight back if you think you can defy my authority.”
His foot smashes into William’s rib cage and William allows a soft whimper to escape his lips, head spinning and eyes watering and he’s surprised he’s not used to this by now. But he doesn’t get up. Instead, he protects his head with his arms and lies still as Tom kicks the shit out of his fragile body, cursing in sort of maniacal laughter than makes William’s insides rearrange themselves.
“Get up,” he shouts again.
When William doesn’t make an effort to move, Tom grabs him by the back of the neck and detaches his broken body from the floor, socking him dead in the eye socket, then in the nose.
“If I ever see you with that fucking queer again, I’ll fuck him up twice as hard and you three times. Understand?”
William nods furiously, but doesn’t open his mouth to speak due to the blood from his nose running rivers down his lips in a constant, sticky flow.
“Understand?!” Tom shouts again into William’s face, and it takes all William has to choke out “yes” as the bitter taste of blood soaks between his dry lips, dancing along his tongue and staining his teeth sickeningly crimson.
Grasping William by the collar, Tom drags him to the back of the store and tosses him out the side door down two or three steps into the frigid alleyway. William hits the pavement like a ragdoll and he doesn’t allow himself to cry until Tom slams the door, and when he does, it’s in deep, choking gasps that rattle his shattered body with waves of unbearable pain, blood in his lungs and stomach and all over his clothes.
It takes him twenty minutes and a few ounces of shed bloody tears to crawl the couple flights of fire escape stairs to his third floor apartment, and when he does, he makes sure the door is locked before dragging his crumpled body into the safety of the dilapidated sofa before crying his pain to a pitiful excuse for sleep.
Part Two
Author/Artist: Jen santixcore
Bands: The Academy Is/Cobra Starship. (and appearances from like every other FBR band)
Pairing(s): William/Gabe.
Prompt assigned: Fairy Tales: Wicked Step Relatives
Word count: 10,973
Rating: PG-13-ish.
Summary: In which William is an awkward optimist who loves Christmas, owns a bookstore, and has two abusive step brothers who give him sort of a Cinderella reputation. Gabe is adopted with a family who loves him and William is almost as envious as he is amazed. A holiday-infused love ensues, and William renews his confidences in the power of a close-knit family.
written for bandom_solstice.
William Beckett is sort of a Christmas decorations junkie.
He only sincerely notices it once a year, when he resurrects the boxes and boxes of bulbs and figurines and lights from the crawlspace above his attic apartment and hauls them downstairs into the store, where he’ll spend a few days decorating after hours until it looks less like a corner bookstore and more like a homemade ornament shop, and the only way one can determine precisely what the store has to offer is by the sign outside the door that reads Prince Street Books. And it’s not the pure number of decorations he owns that’s most alarming; it’s the variety, the way each ornament possesses its own story of how it came to reside in the crawlspace above William’s apartment, and how William can speak for just about all of them individually. This snowman sculpture I made in third grade crafts class and the glue smear on its face is because of the kid next to me trying to squeeze the life out of a new bottle of glue or I found this ornament on someone’s tree laid out on the sidewalk for the garbage truck to take away the day after New Years.
When it comes down to the matter, William sort of has a thing for Christmas in general, and the entire concept of the holidays has always and will always have a place in his heart to romp around, flourish, and spread to other hearts as it does so, because William never allows any of his holiday cheer stay bottled up in his heart for very long. He finds it readily being released through spacious grins and smooth-vocaled carols, sentimental holiday wishes and lavish seasonal decorating.
And customers always tend to take notice of William's excessively contagious holiday spirit, and while it's not unwelcome, it's still passed off as a front, and they tend to say things along the lines of, "No one, could be that cheerful under such ill-fated circumstances as his."
By ill-fated, they’re almost always referring to Mike and Tom, that for the past six years have played the role of William’s vindictive step brothers, and from the time when William was just a sixteen-year-old reclusive bookworm merely trying to finish high school, they’ve strived to cruelly control every ounce of William’s self and existence, because they know they can, and because in some sick way, it gives them a sense of power they otherwise wouldn’t have.
It comes as no surprise that they’d prey on someone as vulnerable as their younger stepbrother, because with Mike and Tom, everything ends up coming down to power or money, from allowing William to run their deceased stepdad’s old bookstore to running their own underground drug dealership; it’s all sort of about those two main principles.
And even though William may not live in the clichéd sense of the word happiness, he’s not exactly miserable, despite widespread belief. Because with William, his optimism is borderline disgusting, and everything and everyone in the world is some form of beautiful. He takes every bad experience and turns it into an essential life lesson; makes sure no good day is taken for granted and no bad day ends without a solid reason to hope for a better day tomorrow, and this hope is always his driving incentive to always look at life with a limitless, bright perspective.
And even though William is without a doubt extremely excluded from the world in his lonely attic apartment and has every reason to despise humanity while his brothers rob him of his earnings and try to rob him of his spirit, he doesn’t despise anything or anyone, doesn’t act lonely or wounded and doesn’t try to doll himself up as another tragic casualty of abuse. Instead, he applies a fresh coat of concealer over the bruises covering his skin each morning, musters up one of his contagious smiles, and hopes to God today will be the day someone will whisk him away from his living hell that he’s been desperately trying to sugar coat.
*
Two weeks until Christmas and William is placing the final touches on the miniature artificial Christmas tree perched atop the sales counter of the corner bookstore of which he’s the primary owner, forking profits over to Tom and Mike like it doesn’t pain him to do so (even thought it really does). Either way, William takes care of the store as if it were his own Fortune 500 Company, mimicking his father’s thoughtfulness toward every book and magazine and every free drop of coffee in the three coffee pots that are always filled with three different flavors of fresh coffee every morning.
The day’s routine is not much different than the ones before it, slow, easy mornings swelling to successful, hectic lunch hours, and William is certain Christmastime in his little bookstore is one of the best times of the year, not only because of the significant rise in sales, but because the atmosphere is somehow warmer, smells like pine and gingerbread air fresheners and happiness, and as he’s sitting balanced on the edge of the counter, swinging his skinny legs youthfully over the edge, he can’t think of anywhere he’d rather be than right here.
A new shipment of assorted books that had arrived the night before is waiting for William in the back room, and he takes advantage of the sluggish afternoon to begin placing them on the shelves, working his way down the rows of shelves from Albom to Wilde, going to great lengths to be sure that each author lines up where they fall in the alphabet and that each title is proudly displayed. As he does this, improvised caroling soars from somewhere in his heart and escapes from between his cherry lips and it’s not as much for the sake of the holidays as much as it’s for the sake of his sanity, because singing gives William a talent beyond stocking shelves and masking misery, and although he doesn’t sing for other people necessarily, he sings for everything else that makes him happy. He sings for the books he cherishes and the guitar he awkwardly strums sometimes; sings for flavored coffee and re-runs of Friends and everything that’s ever made him smile.
And when William sings, it takes him somewhere far more profound than anything in the physical realm of trivial assholes, somewhere you can’t really explain but you know it exists because you feel it, and you’re sorry for anyone who can’t. In this state, he has trouble grasping what things are in his head and what things are surrounding his real physical self, so when the bells above the front door emit a soft jingle, it doesn’t really register correctly in his head as he switches from “Jingle Bell Rock” a one-man “Baby It’s Cold Outside” that he’s no longer the only person in the store.
It doesn’t register fully until the boy who just strolled in is snaking his purple-hooded head around the rows of shelves, pausing for a second to be captivated by William’s voice before speaking up in a wary, tense voice.
“-Excuse me.”
As soon as the boy opens his mouth, William’s stomach does a leap up into his throat, obstructing his airway so his singing is cut off immediately as he wheels around to face whoever just walked in, paralyzed with mortification as he does so.
"Sorry. I didn’t mean to like, sneak up on you like that,” the boy begins apologizing, embarrassed himself, as if he were disturbing something sacred. “I just wanted ask if you knew where I could find a certain book.”
William tries to slow his heart rate down as he assures him, “No, it’s totally fine. I just didn’t know you were there and it’s sort of embarrassing to be caught in a mediocre round of caroling, but what book were you-“
“-Mediocre?” The boy repeats this, mulling it over behind his eyes for a few seconds before opting to say “Not at all. Mediocre is when you suck. You don’t suck.”
William’s eyes fall to the dusty maroon carpet and he smiles meekly through the hair plunging into his eyes, but doesn’t dwell on it because he’s normally the one handing out compliments, not receiving them, and he doesn’t exactly know how to act, so he says, “What book were you looking for, exactly?”
The guy looks to the ceiling, as if the answer or the book itself is to be right there glued to the tiles, and when it’s not, he snaps his fingers a few times as if to demand it out of his head. “The author starts with a P, I remember that.”
William leads him to the P section in fiction, and at least they’ve narrowed it down to a letter rather than an entire store.
“I’m Gabe,” the boy offers, as if his name is a sort of replacement for the author of the book in question.
“William,” William says warmly with one of his total William grins, one of those full-faced I-just-got-my-braces-off grins that are all over orthodontist office walls.
“William, cool,” Gabe smiles too, and both ends are still a little on the uncomfortable side, especially now that names are out of the way and Gabe still doesn’t remember the book he’s looking for. “Let me text my brother and ask him who his favorite author is.”
The reply is quick one, and when Gabe opens it up on his phone, he chuckles softly to himself like you’re fucking kidding me. I can’t pronounce that. He tries, and stumbles. “Chuck Pal-ahhh-nee-uck?”
William shakes his head in amusement, traces his finger over a row of spines and pulls a handful of books off the shelves and holds them up for Gabe to examine. “These?”
“Yeah, those,” Gabe says, relieved, taking the books from William and shuffling through each, picking out the only one Ryan doesn’t own and waving it triumphantly in the air. “Cool. Thanks.”
“I’ll ring you up,” William offers, moving off toward the register with Gabe trailing intrigued behind him.
“These decorations are really nice,” Gabe observes as William scans the book.
“Yeah? Thanks,” William says, and then “I have a thing for Christmas decorations.”
“I’d say so,” Gabe laughs. He takes a closer look at the miniature tree on the counter, eyeing a picture frame ornament holding a photograph of a middle aged guy and a boy of maybe eleven or twelve, both of them proudly displaying freshly caught fish and flaunting grins that look similar to one another, and familiar. “Is that you?”
William nods and leans over the counter to look at the ornament as well. “And my dad. He took me on a fishing trip the summer he and my mom split up. He and I were really close, but he died around the time of my eighteenth birthday and I sort of threw my college dreams out the window to keep this place afloat for him, so to speak.”
"Oh. I'm sorry. That’s really nice of you though. He looks just like you," Gabe notes, gaze fixed softly on their matching hazelnut eyes, their light russet hair both shaggy against their identically strong bone structure.
“Does he? I get that a lot,” William answers absently as he rummages behind the counter for a gift bag and some tissue paper. “This is for a gift, right?”
Gabe nods.
“You don’t look like much of a present wrapper,” William observes, eying Gabe’s awkward fingers tugging on purple hoodie sleeves.
“Not really,” he admits.
“Want me to wrap it up for you?”
And Gabe takes him up on the offer not only because he’s pretty much a lousy gift wrapper, but because this William guy is sort of intriguing, and any time stalled to continue talking to him is more than welcome wholeheartedly.
“So you run this place alone now?” Gabe asks as he watches William’s skeletal fingers neatly crease the tissue paper around the book, taping it down with the strips of tape temporarily resting on his wrist.
“Sort of.”
“Sort of?”
“Yeah. Sort of,” William confirms. “Because while I take care of it, I have two stepbrothers that keep most of the profits, and if I don’t pay up, they have the legal rights to sell the store. So yeah, sort of.”
“That sucks,” Gabe says, and then sighs at his insincerity and tries to recover. “I take it your dad remarried, then?”
“Unfortunately.”
By this time, the book is flawlessly wrapped by William’s steady hand and he’s holding it out to Gabe with a little smile.
Gabe grins wildly. “Thank you.”
“You should stop by again.” William’s smooth voice resonates through the air in soft, hopeful fragments, and Gabe’s figuratively trying to catch each one to hold onto and carry with him on his way out the door.
“Yeah. Yeah, definitely For sure,” he stumbles awkwardly, taking Ryan’s gift and stuffing it under his arm. He holds his hand out inelegantly to William, who takes it and gives it a promising shake, and he notices Gabe’s hands are sort of rough in the attractively callused sort of way, and he could definitely get used to having them around.
“Cool. Merry Christmas.”
“Yeah. Thanks. Back at you.”
And when the bells jingle above the door again and Gabe is out of sight, William is feeling more holiday cheer than he thinks he’s had in one sitting since his dad passed away, and as he returns to stocking the shelves again, he doesn’t care who hears him sing, just that he’s singing because it feels good and he feels good and something’s finally completely and sincerely right in his heart and head.
*
A week and a half until Christmas and William hasn’t seen much of Mike or Tom in the past few days, for which he’s grateful, so it’s almost surprising and fully unsolicited to see the two of them waltz through the front door of the store after closing as if they own the place (even though they kind of do) and rest their dirty elbows on the counter like they’re allowed to (even though they can do pretty much whatever the fuck they want).
“What?” William snaps from behind Cat’s Cradle, because he’s really not in the mood for their bullshit right now.
Tom reaches over to tap William on the cheek swiftly with his open palm. “Don’t get smart.”
William flinches back, sighs, and stubbornly turns back to his book, knowing damn well they’re here to collect money they didn’t earn and not feeling generous enough today to just hand it over.
“Cough it up, fucking faggot,” Mike hisses after a few moments of a sort of western showdown between the hostility in all three of their pairs of eyes.
William says, “You need it that bad? Did your shady business ventures finally nip you in the ass, then? Well-“
But Tom’s fist collides with William’s defined cheekbone before he can finish, and that’s all the further negotiating that needs to be done before William is storming out the door and climbing the three flights of fire escape stairs to reach his shitty apartment as the chill of the December wind blows an additional sting over his throbbing face.
It’s warm in his apartment because he left the space heater on high all afternoon, but he can’t really appreciate it with an ice pack obstructing the injured side of his face, chillingly and futilely trying to reduce the swelling so questions aren’t asked and hearts aren’t broken.
*
One week until Christmas and William is on his sort-of lunch break, a turkey and cheese sandwich resting on his lap as he sits bored at the register with A Separate Peace propped open with his coffee mug.
He’s totally not expecting to see Gabe strolling through the door unannounced, overwhelmingly stunning in tight-fitted black jeans and a bright t-shirt and even brighter jacket, and William thinks he looks sort of like a bowl of fruity pebbles in sort of the best way possible.
“Hey William,” Gabe slurs enthusiastically as he props himself up against the counter with a charismatic little smirk. “Busy?”
William’s stomach does a flip-flopping motion and he swallows another bite of sandwich to try and calm it down. “Sort of.”
Gabe surveys the store dramatically with the side of his hand pressed to his brow line. “Maybe I’m optically impaired, but it doesn’t look busy to me.”
William snorts under his breath, amused. “I guess today’s another slow day. Yesterday was good though.”
“So if I asked you to lunch with me, would you be able to leave your busy post for an hour?”
William blushes ferociously and really, really wants to accept, but if Mike and Tom found out, they’d flip shit, because lunchtime is the biggest customer traffic during the holidays since everyone tends to shop on their lunch break, meaning William can’t take one for himself. “I can’t.”
“Why?”
William sighs meekly, “My brothers.”
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know. Not here.”
Gabe shrugs. “Then how would they ever find out if you left for a little bit? Seriously Will, it’s not like you’re a slave or anything.”
William shakes his head when Gabe says this, because he’s fucking wrong, and because sometimes, William feels more like a slave than anything. With Mike and Tom, he doesn’t feel like an employee and most certainly not like a brother.
“I can’t,” William says again.
Gabe’s enthusiasm deflates, his shoulders sagging and a desperate pout forming across his thin pink lips. “Your brothers must be pretty powerful if you’d rather sit here alone than go on a date. They must get to you.”
“Date?” William repeats incredulously.
“Yeah, sure, why not? Dates are cool.” Gabe confirms with a little smile, hopping up to sit himself on the counter. “Are you turning down my date proposal?”
William’s heart would probably eat itself inside out if he turned Gabe down, so he allows Gabe to pull a piece of computer paper from the printer, remove the black sharpie lodged in his back pocket and write neatly TOOK LUNCH. BACK AT ONE.
Gabe puts the sign in the window for William, and traces a checkmark in the air with his index finger. “Now you have no excuses. Come on, I know somewhere I think you might like.”
*
The city is alive with the idea of Christmas and William can feel it in the way Gabe is holding his hand as they weave through the sidewalk crowded with warm hearts and paper shopping bags and Christmas carols resonating from stores and small groups of carolers.
A few blocks away is a café with a quaint red and white color scheme, squished between a cell phone store on one side and a pawn shop on the other. Despite the odd location, it’s sort of cute, and Gabe pulls William’s hand through the door like he’s the most important thing in the world and sits him down at a table with a perfect view of the city outside.
William insists he’s not hungry, and instead orders a flavored coffee while Gabe asks for soup and a grilled vegetable sandwich.
Waiting for the food to come, William says, “This place is nice.”
“Is it? It’s my favorite,” Gabe croons. “I hope it’s worth taking off for.”
William nods affirmatively. “If Tom and Mike found out though-“
“-What the hell is with you and your preoccupation with your brothers and how they run your life?” Gabe snaps, and when William flinches back in apprehension, Gabe allows his frustration to taper off. “I’m sorry. So I’m guessing they’re really that bad?”
“Yeah,” William mutters into his hands folded neatly on the tabletop. “They’re really that bad.” He doesn’t say anything else, and Gabe doesn’t ask, and for that he’s grateful.
It’s silent between their bodies until the food arrives, neither really knowing whether their conversation topics are saying too much or too little, if they’re too awkward or too personal or impersonal or just ridiculous in nature.
William steals a few of the chips off of Gabe’s sandwich plate when he assumes his gaze is turned elsewhere, but Gabe catches him by the wrist red handed and jokes, “So much for you not being hungry.”
William states simply, “I changed my mind,” and Gabe releases his grip on William’s wrist to allow him to nourish his emaciated body.
Gabe says, “You can have half of my sandwich if you want it.”
William says, “No. I already ate.”
“I took you to lunch in hopes you’d actually eat something.”
William holds up his coffee with a smile.
“That’s hardly nourishment. Seriously, how much coffee do you drink?” Gabe asks in disbelief.
William reaches across the table to swipe some more of Gabe’s chips, jamming them between his lips before stating, “Uh-nuff.”
Gabe rolls his eyes, however smiling, “The least I can do is donate the rest of my chips to your mouth. You’re entirely too thin.”
“I luff muh girlush figyuh,” William protests with his mouth full of chip fragments.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full. That’s not what girls do.”
William makes a kind of hmph noise and dramatically sucks a few more chips into his mouth before smirking, “U’m uh rehbuhl.”
“You’re about as rebellious as a herd of cattle, m’dear,” Gabe laughs. “You’re too obedient to be a rebel.”
“You would be too…” he trails off, hands wrapped firmly around his coffee mug, allowing the warmth to radiate through his body. He doesn’t say more, because the last thing he wants is sympathy. He’s just stating, not fishing.
“Sorry,” Gabe mutters, acknowledging his mistake and trying to cover it up with the conversational topic of “Well I’m adopted.”
William nods with a weak scowl, jadedly mumbling, “Adopted. Cool.”
Gabe sighs in defeat. “Hey, I’m sorry. I tend to dwell sometimes. Hey Will. Hey, smile, okay?”
William tries.
He fails.
Gabe finishes the last bite of his sandwich and stands up to pay rather than try to handle his latest fuck up in the middle of a crowded café.
When he comes back, William is still parked in his seat where Gabe left him, eyes searching for reasons not to be offended and coming up short.
“Will,” Gabe hums, and William almost wants to tell him no one can call him “Will” but his dad, but doesn’t, because corrections lead to arguments and arguments lead to leaving and even though William’s upset, he doesn’t want to be left alone again. Gabe holds his hand out. “Come on. Let’s walk.”
William takes Gabe’s hand awkwardly and allows Gabe to pull him from the chair he originally aimed to stubbornly glue himself to. He submits to being lead outside and through the holiday music and crowds and shopping bags and smog, block after block until Gabe tows him into a bench at the park across from William’s bookstore.
He pulls William’s face up to correspond with the position with his own, callused fingers lightly grazing William’s porcelain chin. “Talk to me.”
William inhales, taking in the way Gabe unexpectedly smells like a Christmas tree and mint and a dusty attic, and instead of spilling the hatred he has for Mike and Tom, he spills the love he has for Gabe’s scent.
“You smell like Christmas and I love it.”
Gabe wraps his arms around William and inhales into William’s tattered hoodie, mumbling into his shoulder, “You smell like books and coffee and love and you wouldn’t be any less special if you smelled like shit.”
This produces a smile on William’s part, and he hugs Gabe back with all the strength his fragile arms can assemble. “So, you say you’re adopted?”
Gabe grins. “Yeah. And the only way you’d ever know is because my family collectively could resemble a United Nations meeting. My four brothers and I are all adopted. I was born in Uruguay, my brother Alex was born in Spain, Travis is partly African-American, and Pete and Ryan, they’re just different. My adopted mother is completely Italian and my adopted father is originally from India. They’ve had their eyes set on a diverse family ever since they met on a foreign exchange trip. The treat us as if we were their own, though. They always have. And we’ve always treated them like they were our own parents. It’s really unique, I think.”
William smiles, a little envious, but sincere. “I’d love a family like that.”
“Yeah? I love my family more than anything, I think. It’s sort of like a bunch of misfit souls coming together and successfully finding somewhere they mutually belong. We make ‘never a dull moment’ an understatement.”
William says, “That must be nice,” and feels ashamed to have to call Mike and Tom his only family. He’d rather say he has no family at all, because Mike and Tom, they’re not family. Family isn’t cruelty and mutilation and greed. Family should be about mutual generosity and love and respect.
“It’s cool to have them all home for the holidays,” Gabe goes on. “Ryan and Pete are married and Alex and Travis are off doing something with music and I’ve been busy studying design. We don’t get together as often now that we’re all grown up and of the house.”
“That’s what the holidays are for,” William says, and means it despite not really living it.
“I agree,” Gabe grins, taking one of William’s pale hands and lacing it up in his own. “Sometimes though, it’s also nice to get away and get to know someone new.”
“Oh?” William says absentmindedly, busily tracing circles on the back of Gabe’s hand with the fingers that are free, having never felt someone else’s hand in his own like this, but not exactly dismissing it. It feels nice, this skin-to-skin, heart-to-heart kind of intimacy.
“Yeah,” Gabe says with conviction. “Someone with a billboard smile who smells like books and can pronounce ridiculous last names like a pro.”
William’s heart soars, wide-grinned and hopeful-eyed and boundless and flawless and he flings himself into Gabe’s arms without even second-guessing his spontaneity, and it just feels right, this closeness between him and someone he could still sort of consider a stranger. This neon-colored, awkward, sweet-hearted stranger that’s inviting him into his arms, his heart, and his space that for the time being is their space.
But then William remembers the watch wrapped tight around his wrist, counting down to the moment where William has to leave this sample of perfection and return across the street to books and a living hell, and when the hour hand is perfectly aligned with the 1, William says, “I have to go.”
Gabe sighs, “I was expecting that.”
“I’m sorry,” William says desperately, hands still intertwined with Gabe’s.
Gabe says as he stands William up, “It’d be cool if I could get your number.”
“Give me your phone.”
Gabe pulls it from his hoodie pocket and places it in William’s open palm, who navigates quickly through the menus and punches his number it, a little smiley face beside his name.
Gabe asks, “Can I walk you back?”
William bites his lip apprehensively. “It’s just across the street.”
“Did you not pay attention in kindergarten safety class?” Gabe asks with a smirk. He takes William’s hand again. “Always hold hands while crossing the street.”
William bites his lip. With his luck, his absence didn’t go unnoticed and he’s not going to be left off easy, and he doesn’t want Gabe to have to see just how bad his stepbrothers can get when William dismisses their authority.
But Gabe insists and William accepts because he’s not ready to release quite yet.
However, William isn’t at all surprised to see Tom sitting on the counter as they walk in, dirty sneakers polluting the polished wood as he swings them back and forth, furious. The makeshift sign is clenched in his fist and his eyes are burning through William so strongly that it actually hurts already.
Before William can tell Gabe to leave, Tom leaps from the countertop and storms over to where William is standing paralyzed with Gabe’s hand still hooked around his waist, making idle circles into his hip.
Tom stares at Gabe, fucking livid, and sneers, “Leave. Now.”
Gabe stands his ground and snaps, “No.”
“Gabe. Just go,” William pleads, because as much as he wants Gabe to stay and protect him, he doesn’t want Gabe to see him at his most vulnerable.
Gabe looks to him desperately, says firmly, “I’m. Not. Leaving. You.”
Tom takes an open palm and shoves Gabe’s shoulder back a little. “Get out. Or I’ll have the police out here for trespassing.”
Gabe releases his grip on William and uses both hands to shove Tom a few feet backwards, almost slamming him into the counter.
William screams Gabe’s name and pulls him back before Tom has a chance to react and literally pushing him to the door. “Leave. I’ll be okay. Just go.”
Gabe’s eyes scream desperation and William swears he’s nearly in tears. “I’ll call you,” he whispers low enough to bypass Tom’s ears.
William nods, tries to kiss Gabe’s cheek, but he’s gone and out the door before William can say a word, leaving him alone with Tom at his most enraged.
“Tell me,” Tom spits. “Exactly when did I tell you that you could take lunch?”
“Never,” William mutters to his shoestrings.
Tom lifts the sign from the counter, balls it up, and tosses it in William’s direction. “Then what the fuck is this?!”
William is silent.
“Answer me,” Tom demands, stepping so close to William that William can feel heat radiating off of his furious body.
“I-”
But Tom’s fist collides with William’s jaw before he can get past the first word, and William collapses in agony to the dusty floor with a sickening thud, and Tom’s towering above him shouting “Get up, you fucking faggot. Get the fuck up and fight back if you think you can defy my authority.”
His foot smashes into William’s rib cage and William allows a soft whimper to escape his lips, head spinning and eyes watering and he’s surprised he’s not used to this by now. But he doesn’t get up. Instead, he protects his head with his arms and lies still as Tom kicks the shit out of his fragile body, cursing in sort of maniacal laughter than makes William’s insides rearrange themselves.
“Get up,” he shouts again.
When William doesn’t make an effort to move, Tom grabs him by the back of the neck and detaches his broken body from the floor, socking him dead in the eye socket, then in the nose.
“If I ever see you with that fucking queer again, I’ll fuck him up twice as hard and you three times. Understand?”
William nods furiously, but doesn’t open his mouth to speak due to the blood from his nose running rivers down his lips in a constant, sticky flow.
“Understand?!” Tom shouts again into William’s face, and it takes all William has to choke out “yes” as the bitter taste of blood soaks between his dry lips, dancing along his tongue and staining his teeth sickeningly crimson.
Grasping William by the collar, Tom drags him to the back of the store and tosses him out the side door down two or three steps into the frigid alleyway. William hits the pavement like a ragdoll and he doesn’t allow himself to cry until Tom slams the door, and when he does, it’s in deep, choking gasps that rattle his shattered body with waves of unbearable pain, blood in his lungs and stomach and all over his clothes.
It takes him twenty minutes and a few ounces of shed bloody tears to crawl the couple flights of fire escape stairs to his third floor apartment, and when he does, he makes sure the door is locked before dragging his crumpled body into the safety of the dilapidated sofa before crying his pain to a pitiful excuse for sleep.
Part Two