Don't Even Lie
Don't Even Lie
Further Adventures of Gabe Saporta: Married Man. I'm a sucker for the soft shit, what can I say. This is a sequel to I Don't Know How To etc
And he loves Maja. He wants to do whatever she tells him to do. Damn Pete and his psychic abilities
Maja says, as she’s leaving the house, “I’m late.”
Gabe says, confused, soap bubbles from the dishes all over his hands, “What? I thought you were leaving now so you would be early.”
She socks him in the stomach and then pulls him in for a kiss. “Idiot.” He reaches to pull her closer but she pushes him back. “No, you’ll get me wet.”
He thinks about making a dirty joke and then. Then. “Oh,” he says, when she opens the door. “Oh, no, oh. Maja!”
She smiles at him in the evening sunlight. He can’t tell if she’s glowing. Pregnant women are supposed to glow. Does she glow? He squints. He’ll have to ask Travie and William. Maja is always alight to his eyes. He supposes that’s because he loves her. Or maybe it’s because he drinks too much.
“Don’t tell anyone,” she warns. “I want to be sure. And then we will tell William and Travis together.”
Maja should have never trusted him. He spends the rest of the evening on the couch watching basketball and thinking, almost hysterically, a litany of babybabybaby-oh my god-baby. He reaches for the phone to call William once, Travis twice and Pete about five times. He forgets to hang up the sixth time.
“What the fuck Gabe, seriously. And I know it’s you because Maja and Travis wouldn’t call me five times in a row without leaving a message-”
Gabe breathes down the line noisily and hopes that Pete will understand his burden. Gabe has never been good at keeping secrets.
“Holy fuck!” shrieks Pete when Gabe finally hyperventilates himself into near-exhaustion, falling over sideways on the couch. “Maja’s preg-“
“NO!” shouts Gabe, sitting up with a gasp. He has to keep this secret. Maja told him not to tell. And he loves Maja. He wants to do whatever she tells him to do. Damn Pete and his psychic abilities, shouting at Gabe down the line, “no, what?! holy shit! Gabe! Fuck, man!”
Frantically, he says, “No, no, I’m on drugs!” and hangs up.
Gabe wakes up, still on the couch, but only because Travis is sitting on him and giving him handjob. He really loves being married. He really loves being married to Travis.
“Baby, I love you,” he says when Travis’ lips meet his, and then he’s horrified at himself. His slip-up is like. . .Freudian or something. And Travis is smart. Travis will figure it all out and then Maja will kill him. He screws up his face and waits for Travis to freak. They’re going to be fathers.
But Travis is too busy laughing at the term of endearment to notice Gabe’s epic Freudian fuck-up. “Lover,” Travis says with a smile. “Honey. Darling. Motherfucker.” He pats Gabe’s hip. Gabe sighs with relief - Maja’s secret is still safe. “Where’s Maja? William had to fly out to Chicago for a couple days. Siska fell on his head or something. Bill’s gonna call when he gets in.. Did he call? Can we get naked?”
Gabe cannot handle this many questions under such pressure. (Travis’ knees against his hips, his weight on Gabe’s thighs, his hands on Gabe’s face.) “Maja. . .” he waves a hand at the door. “Out. Interview.”
Travis nods. “And William?”
Gabe shakes his head. Travis nods. “I’m hungry.” He gets off of Gabe and pads off to the kitchen.
“There was another question!” says Gabe, outraged, but he’s hungry too, and he follows Travis.
Maja wakes Gabe up when she crawls into bed with them, very late at night. He reaches out to her and gives her a kiss. “Are you okay?” he whispers.
“Long interview,” she sighs. “Gabe, you look guilty.” She peers at him anxiously and he shakes his head.
“What’d he do?” whispers Travis, rubbing her arm. “Gabe, you seeing Ryan Ross again?”
Gabe winces because seriously, that was like two years ago, and he didn’t even do anything, and it was way way way before they were married or even a couple in the classic sense so it was technically okay to feel Ryan Ross up a little bit. He didn’t even know Ryan and William were rivals. What the fuck was he supposed to do, that skinny bastard with the pouty-
“Blushing,” says Maja, petting his face. “Guilty bastard. Move over, I’m sleepy.”
She fits in the space between them and they curl around her, hands meeting in the middle over her belly. Gabe can see her smile in the dark. Oh god, pregnancy.
Gabe is the only one home when William gets back a couple days later, which is cool because he was just about to go out and now William can help him buy groceries, but not really cool because William tackles when he’s really happy to see people, like Gabe or Travis or Maja.
“You’re seeing Ryan Ross again?!” he shouts joyfully, pummeling Gabe to the ground and kissing him senseless. “Maja and Travie told me!”
“I was never seeing Ryan Ross!” Gabe protests, around hands and hips. “I swear! I didn’t do anything!” He doesn’t understand the rivalry, really. William couldn’t protect Jon forever; if Ryan Ross hadn’t stolen him, Gabe totally would have.
“I saw you, Gabe Saporta,” says William. “I saw you feel him up. Hey, so where are you going? Can I help? Are we going to get drunk?” he demands.
Gabe kisses William. “We’re going grocery shopping. You can get drunk, but I need to remember what we have to buy.”
“Cool,” says William. “Where’s Maja and Travie?”
Gabe rubs his cheek. “Out.” Travie, with his band, Maja at the doctor’s. She’d sworn him not to tell and he doesn’t like it all. He doesn’t like keeping secrets from his best friends and lovers. It feels dirty, like he’s actually seeing Ryan Ross.
William pats his head. “Gabey, what are you hiding?”
Gabe swallows. “Um, this beautiful body?” He plays the buttons on his shirt. “Yeah.”
William throws back his head and laughs. Gabe touches William’s wrist and hopes the kid takes after him. William is so beautiful.
Maja’s home when they get back. Grocery shopping with Bill, Gabe decides, is the best way to grocery shop. He forgets how much he misses Bill when he has to go back to Chicago. They stumble into the house, laughing like asses and loaded down with purchases that don’t make sense, although they did (and thank god, judging from the tired, amused look on Maja’s face) remember to buy more milk. And eggs. And booze. He doesn’t remember what else though, just that there were brightly colored vegetables and Bill had gone around trying to get even amounts of each color of the rainbow.
They have, he thinks, a truly heinous amount of eggplant and yellow pepper to even out Travis’ love of strawberries.
“Maja!” shouts William happily, and he’s two steps away from dropping his purchases to fling himself around her. He spreads his arms wide to catch her, but she catches the bags instead with a grunt.
“Bill!” says Gabe. “Be careful!”
Bill turns to him, eyebrow raised. Gabe flushes. It’s not like they haven’t thrown each other off of balconies or wrestled until the blood threatened to stain, but Maja has a baby now. He feels a thousand times more protective of her then ever before.
“William,” Maja admonishes, “you might have broken the bottles.” She gives Gabe a look and he feels it in the pit of his stomach. She is definitely glowy. She shines like something he’s never seen before and he has to bit his lip to keep from grinning.
William gives a dramatic sigh, a lovesick puppy, trailing after her to the kitchen. “You’re so pretty, Maja, why are you so pretty tonight?”
“William.”
Gabe is privileged enough to watch them kiss against the counter, sighing in each other’s lips. He is the luckiest man alive. “I missed you,” whispers William, pushing his face into Maja’s hair. “Gabe ain’t no fun.”
“Fuck you,” says Gabe, working around them to put errant cans of soup away. “What do we feel like eating?”
“Something healthy and respectable,” says Maja, pushing William away to swing herself up on the counter. “When is Travis coming home?”
“Soon,” says Gabe.
In the middle of dinner, Maja pushes her half-eaten plate of food away from her and asks, “do we have any bananas?”
Gabe panics. Bananas? Is this is a pregnant woman thing, cravings or whatever, or is she trying to communicate with him, sending him secret messages through fruit? She stares at him. He blinks, sweating a little. He didn’t tell anyone. Is it to do with the actual baby? Boy or girl? Is it okay? Oh god, did she lose the baby-
“Bananas!” says William cheerfully. “We bought a bunch!”
Travis snorts into his plate, coughing. “That was terrible.”
“Don’t even lie, you totally smiled, I saw it,” says William. He gets up, taking his plate and Majas. “Bananas for dessert, Maja!”
She smiles at William. Gabe takes his glass of water and downs it. A lesser man might have fainted.
Gabe finally manages to relax while they’re all watching High School Musical, all piled on top of each other. He’s missed this. Maja’s face against his shoulder, William’s legs entwined through his, Travis’s hand on the back of couch, brushing his neck slightly but mostly just pulling Maja in. There are empty ice cream bowls on the table and the whole room smells like bananas, especially Maja.
This movie is awesome, he thinks. He’s so glad they’re all home, all at once. It makes him feel safe and warm, although that’s most likely because they’re always near each other. Touching each other, holding on to each other.
He swallows the sigh of contentment rising in his throat and leans his head against Maja’s.
Maja says, “I’m pregnant.”
William elbows Gabe in the eye as he dives over Gabe to get to Maja. Too late, Travis has already grabbed her, hugging her, cuddling her. William reaches around both of them, pulling them both into a hug. They’re wordless with excitement, all of them.
Gabe would try to hug Maja too except his cell phone is ringing and he can’t see out of one eye. He slithers to the floor (like a snake, like a cobra!) underneath William’s legs and answers.
“Ow,” he says, as William’s knee knocks against his head. “Hello?”
“I made mock-ups of onesies I want you to take a look at,” says Pete. “So you better not be on drugs. It’s gonna be a baby line; Saccharine by Clandestine. There’s gonna be hats and shit too. And Patrick said he’s knows a guy who makes instruments for children, like baby synths so you don’t even have to worry-“
Gabe puts the phone down and hugs Maja’s legs, kisses her knees and buries his face in between her legs like a child. Like their child.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you too,” she says. “Thank you.”
She extracts a hand from between Travis and William, and touches his head.
The baby has Maja’s eyes, Travis’s nose, William’s cheekbones and Gabe’s smile. She’s the prettiest thing Gabe has ever seen.
Further Adventures of Gabe Saporta: Married Man. I'm a sucker for the soft shit, what can I say. This is a sequel to I Don't Know How To etc
And he loves Maja. He wants to do whatever she tells him to do. Damn Pete and his psychic abilities
Maja says, as she’s leaving the house, “I’m late.”
Gabe says, confused, soap bubbles from the dishes all over his hands, “What? I thought you were leaving now so you would be early.”
She socks him in the stomach and then pulls him in for a kiss. “Idiot.” He reaches to pull her closer but she pushes him back. “No, you’ll get me wet.”
He thinks about making a dirty joke and then. Then. “Oh,” he says, when she opens the door. “Oh, no, oh. Maja!”
She smiles at him in the evening sunlight. He can’t tell if she’s glowing. Pregnant women are supposed to glow. Does she glow? He squints. He’ll have to ask Travie and William. Maja is always alight to his eyes. He supposes that’s because he loves her. Or maybe it’s because he drinks too much.
“Don’t tell anyone,” she warns. “I want to be sure. And then we will tell William and Travis together.”
Maja should have never trusted him. He spends the rest of the evening on the couch watching basketball and thinking, almost hysterically, a litany of babybabybaby-oh my god-baby. He reaches for the phone to call William once, Travis twice and Pete about five times. He forgets to hang up the sixth time.
“What the fuck Gabe, seriously. And I know it’s you because Maja and Travis wouldn’t call me five times in a row without leaving a message-”
Gabe breathes down the line noisily and hopes that Pete will understand his burden. Gabe has never been good at keeping secrets.
“Holy fuck!” shrieks Pete when Gabe finally hyperventilates himself into near-exhaustion, falling over sideways on the couch. “Maja’s preg-“
“NO!” shouts Gabe, sitting up with a gasp. He has to keep this secret. Maja told him not to tell. And he loves Maja. He wants to do whatever she tells him to do. Damn Pete and his psychic abilities, shouting at Gabe down the line, “no, what?! holy shit! Gabe! Fuck, man!”
Frantically, he says, “No, no, I’m on drugs!” and hangs up.
Gabe wakes up, still on the couch, but only because Travis is sitting on him and giving him handjob. He really loves being married. He really loves being married to Travis.
“Baby, I love you,” he says when Travis’ lips meet his, and then he’s horrified at himself. His slip-up is like. . .Freudian or something. And Travis is smart. Travis will figure it all out and then Maja will kill him. He screws up his face and waits for Travis to freak. They’re going to be fathers.
But Travis is too busy laughing at the term of endearment to notice Gabe’s epic Freudian fuck-up. “Lover,” Travis says with a smile. “Honey. Darling. Motherfucker.” He pats Gabe’s hip. Gabe sighs with relief - Maja’s secret is still safe. “Where’s Maja? William had to fly out to Chicago for a couple days. Siska fell on his head or something. Bill’s gonna call when he gets in.. Did he call? Can we get naked?”
Gabe cannot handle this many questions under such pressure. (Travis’ knees against his hips, his weight on Gabe’s thighs, his hands on Gabe’s face.) “Maja. . .” he waves a hand at the door. “Out. Interview.”
Travis nods. “And William?”
Gabe shakes his head. Travis nods. “I’m hungry.” He gets off of Gabe and pads off to the kitchen.
“There was another question!” says Gabe, outraged, but he’s hungry too, and he follows Travis.
Maja wakes Gabe up when she crawls into bed with them, very late at night. He reaches out to her and gives her a kiss. “Are you okay?” he whispers.
“Long interview,” she sighs. “Gabe, you look guilty.” She peers at him anxiously and he shakes his head.
“What’d he do?” whispers Travis, rubbing her arm. “Gabe, you seeing Ryan Ross again?”
Gabe winces because seriously, that was like two years ago, and he didn’t even do anything, and it was way way way before they were married or even a couple in the classic sense so it was technically okay to feel Ryan Ross up a little bit. He didn’t even know Ryan and William were rivals. What the fuck was he supposed to do, that skinny bastard with the pouty-
“Blushing,” says Maja, petting his face. “Guilty bastard. Move over, I’m sleepy.”
She fits in the space between them and they curl around her, hands meeting in the middle over her belly. Gabe can see her smile in the dark. Oh god, pregnancy.
Gabe is the only one home when William gets back a couple days later, which is cool because he was just about to go out and now William can help him buy groceries, but not really cool because William tackles when he’s really happy to see people, like Gabe or Travis or Maja.
“You’re seeing Ryan Ross again?!” he shouts joyfully, pummeling Gabe to the ground and kissing him senseless. “Maja and Travie told me!”
“I was never seeing Ryan Ross!” Gabe protests, around hands and hips. “I swear! I didn’t do anything!” He doesn’t understand the rivalry, really. William couldn’t protect Jon forever; if Ryan Ross hadn’t stolen him, Gabe totally would have.
“I saw you, Gabe Saporta,” says William. “I saw you feel him up. Hey, so where are you going? Can I help? Are we going to get drunk?” he demands.
Gabe kisses William. “We’re going grocery shopping. You can get drunk, but I need to remember what we have to buy.”
“Cool,” says William. “Where’s Maja and Travie?”
Gabe rubs his cheek. “Out.” Travie, with his band, Maja at the doctor’s. She’d sworn him not to tell and he doesn’t like it all. He doesn’t like keeping secrets from his best friends and lovers. It feels dirty, like he’s actually seeing Ryan Ross.
William pats his head. “Gabey, what are you hiding?”
Gabe swallows. “Um, this beautiful body?” He plays the buttons on his shirt. “Yeah.”
William throws back his head and laughs. Gabe touches William’s wrist and hopes the kid takes after him. William is so beautiful.
Maja’s home when they get back. Grocery shopping with Bill, Gabe decides, is the best way to grocery shop. He forgets how much he misses Bill when he has to go back to Chicago. They stumble into the house, laughing like asses and loaded down with purchases that don’t make sense, although they did (and thank god, judging from the tired, amused look on Maja’s face) remember to buy more milk. And eggs. And booze. He doesn’t remember what else though, just that there were brightly colored vegetables and Bill had gone around trying to get even amounts of each color of the rainbow.
They have, he thinks, a truly heinous amount of eggplant and yellow pepper to even out Travis’ love of strawberries.
“Maja!” shouts William happily, and he’s two steps away from dropping his purchases to fling himself around her. He spreads his arms wide to catch her, but she catches the bags instead with a grunt.
“Bill!” says Gabe. “Be careful!”
Bill turns to him, eyebrow raised. Gabe flushes. It’s not like they haven’t thrown each other off of balconies or wrestled until the blood threatened to stain, but Maja has a baby now. He feels a thousand times more protective of her then ever before.
“William,” Maja admonishes, “you might have broken the bottles.” She gives Gabe a look and he feels it in the pit of his stomach. She is definitely glowy. She shines like something he’s never seen before and he has to bit his lip to keep from grinning.
William gives a dramatic sigh, a lovesick puppy, trailing after her to the kitchen. “You’re so pretty, Maja, why are you so pretty tonight?”
“William.”
Gabe is privileged enough to watch them kiss against the counter, sighing in each other’s lips. He is the luckiest man alive. “I missed you,” whispers William, pushing his face into Maja’s hair. “Gabe ain’t no fun.”
“Fuck you,” says Gabe, working around them to put errant cans of soup away. “What do we feel like eating?”
“Something healthy and respectable,” says Maja, pushing William away to swing herself up on the counter. “When is Travis coming home?”
“Soon,” says Gabe.
In the middle of dinner, Maja pushes her half-eaten plate of food away from her and asks, “do we have any bananas?”
Gabe panics. Bananas? Is this is a pregnant woman thing, cravings or whatever, or is she trying to communicate with him, sending him secret messages through fruit? She stares at him. He blinks, sweating a little. He didn’t tell anyone. Is it to do with the actual baby? Boy or girl? Is it okay? Oh god, did she lose the baby-
“Bananas!” says William cheerfully. “We bought a bunch!”
Travis snorts into his plate, coughing. “That was terrible.”
“Don’t even lie, you totally smiled, I saw it,” says William. He gets up, taking his plate and Majas. “Bananas for dessert, Maja!”
She smiles at William. Gabe takes his glass of water and downs it. A lesser man might have fainted.
Gabe finally manages to relax while they’re all watching High School Musical, all piled on top of each other. He’s missed this. Maja’s face against his shoulder, William’s legs entwined through his, Travis’s hand on the back of couch, brushing his neck slightly but mostly just pulling Maja in. There are empty ice cream bowls on the table and the whole room smells like bananas, especially Maja.
This movie is awesome, he thinks. He’s so glad they’re all home, all at once. It makes him feel safe and warm, although that’s most likely because they’re always near each other. Touching each other, holding on to each other.
He swallows the sigh of contentment rising in his throat and leans his head against Maja’s.
Maja says, “I’m pregnant.”
William elbows Gabe in the eye as he dives over Gabe to get to Maja. Too late, Travis has already grabbed her, hugging her, cuddling her. William reaches around both of them, pulling them both into a hug. They’re wordless with excitement, all of them.
Gabe would try to hug Maja too except his cell phone is ringing and he can’t see out of one eye. He slithers to the floor (like a snake, like a cobra!) underneath William’s legs and answers.
“Ow,” he says, as William’s knee knocks against his head. “Hello?”
“I made mock-ups of onesies I want you to take a look at,” says Pete. “So you better not be on drugs. It’s gonna be a baby line; Saccharine by Clandestine. There’s gonna be hats and shit too. And Patrick said he’s knows a guy who makes instruments for children, like baby synths so you don’t even have to worry-“
Gabe puts the phone down and hugs Maja’s legs, kisses her knees and buries his face in between her legs like a child. Like their child.
“I love you,” he says.
“I love you too,” she says. “Thank you.”
She extracts a hand from between Travis and William, and touches his head.
The baby has Maja’s eyes, Travis’s nose, William’s cheekbones and Gabe’s smile. She’s the prettiest thing Gabe has ever seen.