Fic: It's All in the Eyes [Cobra GSF]
So this is the second story in a few days where I have no idea where the hell it came from. This one's really short, though, and kind of utterly ridiculous, although it dissolves into fluff at the end. I swear, one day I will write a Cobra GSF that's not ridiculous. Promise. *nods*
Title: It's All in the Eyes
Author: DF
Fandom/Pairing: Cobra GSF
Summary In which Gabe is not a psycho killer. No, really.
Notes: Ridiculous beyond belief. Please forgive me for this one. Inspired by this picspam.
Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure this isn't real, but I can't make any guarantees. Who knows, I might be psychic.
"You know," Ryland says thoughtfully, "you really do look like a psycho killer in these pictures."
This is how it starts.
*
"Do it again," Alex commands.
Sighing, Gabe shoots Alex the look he usually only gives the camera. He likes to think of it as smouldering. Apparently, the rest of the world thinks of it as creepy as fuck. Well, except for Alex, who just finds it hysterical.
"Again!" Alex says when Gabe lets the expression fall.
"Alex," Gabe says, rolling his eyes. "Seriously, it's not that funny."
"Oh, Gabriel, how wrong you are." Alex sits up a little straighter on the couch and claps his hands. Seriously, fucking claps his hands like a fucking five-year old or something. Who the hell claps their hands anymore? Well, maybe Brendon Urie; Gabe totally wouldn't put it past him. "Again."
Gabe obligingly gives Alex The Look, eyes half-lidded, a little smirk playing around the corners of his mouth. Alex bursts out laughing.
"What the hell are you two doing?" Vicky T. demands, wandering in and maybe swaying her hips a little more than is truly necessary. Gabe appreciates it; she's good to him like that.
"Gabe's crazy mass murderer face," Alex tells her earnestly.
"What crazy mass murderer face?"
Alex looks horrified. "The crazy mass murderer face! The one he makes at all the cameras! Gabe, make the face."
"No," Gabe tries to say, but Alex looks pretty obstinate, and Gabe's always been really bad at not giving in to his band. He gives Victoria The Look.
"Oh, his fuck-me face," she says casually.
"Yes!" Gabe shouts. He makes a face at Alex. "Not everyone thinks it's creepy!" Both Vicky T. and Alex ignore him.
"His what?" Alex asks, raising his eyebrows.
"Girls have fuck-me shoes, Gabe has a fuck-me face," Victoria explains patiently. "The look he gives the camera like he's secretly telling it that he just wants it to fuck him until he can't even walk anymore." She sits down next to Alex, crossing her legs and resting her arm over the back of the couch. "Although now that you mention it, it is kind of creepy."
"It's so not creepy!" Gabe protests. Obviously he's still being ignored, though, because neither of them so much as turn to look at him.
"No, explain that about the fuck-me face again," Alex says, looking at Vicky T. attentively and leaning towards her a little. She smirks.
"What, how it makes him look like he's saying that he wants you to bend him over the nearest flat surface and fuck him until he can't even remember his own name?" she asks casually, her voice deepening slightly. "Or else just pound into him nice and low, taking your time so that he's begging for it? Or -"
"Gabe," Alex says, his own voice low. "Make the face again."
Gabe thinks about saying no. Honestly, he does.
Okay, that's a lie, but before he's done more than quirk up the corner of his mouth, Alex and Victoria are dragging him back to the bunks, so it doesn't particularly matter.
*
"It's still kind of creepy," Alex says later, stretching. Gabe watches the muscles in his chest shift.
"Shut up," he says, although he's a little too relaxed right now for it to have much bite.
*
The next morning, though, he's got plenty of bite. Mostly because when he, still not entirely awake, twitches open his curtain, he's greeted by a high-pitched scream. He almost falls out of bed.
"Aaah!" Ryland says, in what is apparently meant to be a girlish voice, which goes a little way to explaining why he could probably double as a dog whistle right now. "It's Gabe Saporta! Somebody help me, I don't want to go to the basement!" He runs off, kicking up his heels and flapping his arms, as the rest of Gabe's traitorous bandmates stand around laughing their asses off.
That is way too many exclamation points this early in the morning, Gabe decides. He pulls the curtains shut and goes back to sleep.
*
Somehow, oh so mysteriously, over the next few days every single photo of Gabe in which he is looking at the camera in a way that could possibly be construed as creepy, psychotic, devious, threatening, and /or sinister is found, printed out, and taped up in the living room.
Not only that - oh, no, Gabe isn't nearly lucky enough to have that be all - but that mysterious someone (although someones, plural, is much more likely, given the amount of diabolical giggling Gabe has heard coming from rooms he just happens not to be in) who printed out the pictures has also found entire online conversations where people discuss how creepy one Gabe Saporta is. It's like the entire living room of their bus is an FBI case file, or something.
"You know, there are online conversations where people just talk about how hot I am!" he protests after the print-outs make an appearance. "You couldn't have printed those instead?"
But no, all he gets is more laughter. Fuckers. He would stop sleeping with them, but he's pretty sure it would be completely unproductive. Also, stop having sex? He's not that much of a moron, thank you very much, and he's definitely not anxious to go back to his right hand and nothing else.
Still, though, he refuses to fool around in the living room anymore. It's not that he has an objection to the sight of his own face; it's just a little creepy to have dozens of little Gabes watching from the walls. He feels like they're enjoying it too much.
*
"And here we have Gabe Saporta, noted murder suspect and infamous sexual deviant," Ryland whispers, completely in character as Guy Ripley. Vicky T. is holding the camera, while Nate sits nearby and watches. Alex just hovers out of frame and tries not to crack up too badly.
"Guys..." Gabe groans.
"Ah, but the charges were dropped," Alex says, breaking in and attempting to keep a straight face. "All the victims have mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps we will never know the truth."
Gabe rolls his eyes.
"Gabe!" Ryland cries, British accent still going strong. "Do you know anything about their disappearances?"
"No comment," Gabe tells the camera. His usual reaction to cameras proves to be his downfall, though; without his even realising it, slowly his eyelids begin to droop shut, his mouth to rise -
"And there is the infamous Saporta psycho face!" Ryland declares, motioning for Vicky T. to zoom in on Gabe. "It was this very smirk that first attracted the authorities to him."
"I hate you all," Gabe mutters, and thankfully, Ryland switches subjects -or at least interviewees, which Gabe is willing to settle for at this point.
"We're talking now to Nate Novarro, one of the key informers for the notorious Basement Killer's trial. Nate, are the rumors of Mr. Saporta's numerous murders correct?"
Nate blinks, momentarily surprised to suddenly have the camera turned on him, but he recovers like a champ. Gabe would be proud, except for the minor detail that they're pretending he's a mass murderer.
"I lived," Nate says slowly, "in his basement. For years."
Alex makes a sympathetic sound, and Ryland gasps in horror. Vicky T. just grins.
"So you must know details of this case," Ryland - Guy Ripley - says, but Nate shakes his head.
"Brainwashed - can't - say -" Nates breaks off, taking a deep breath before switching to a more normal tone of voice. "I can tell you about all the sex toys he kept down there, though. It was fucked up."
"You don't say?" Ryland asks, and Nate nods. Gabe takes that as his cue to leave.
As he's walking away, he hears Nate say, "There was this one that he liked to call the Cobra, and it was huge, right? And it was - it wasn't just one, it was made out of all different things, and he would take them apart and use them separately, and then put them back together -"
*
Everyone gets into it, and by everyone Gabe really means everyone. He wanders in the living room one morning to find an article taped up, right next to a picture of himself at a restaurant with a couple other guys. The article's heading reads:
It Really Is Warmer in the Basement: The Truth Behind Gabe Saporta and the Basement Murders
by Pete Wentz
Gabe scans it; a couple of phrases jump out, like, "Exclusive interview with William Beckett," and, "How has this man gone on for so long without anyone suspecting him?" There's also a paragraph about the danger "noted singer, music producer, and musical genius Patrick Stump" was potentially in when he helped Cobra Starship record their CD, but that's just Pete. He never can resist mentioning Patrick.
There's also a couple pictures of the "trial" done by the Butcher, and one of Gabe holding a bunch of weapons and covered in blood that Gabe suspects was drawn by Gerard Way. Which, the fuck. He and Gerard are buddies! Gerard should be on his side! (Although come to think of it, he had suspected that Gerard has been plotting revenge after the whole grinding-on-Mikey incident...)
But the kicker - the one that almost makes Gabe laugh despite himself - is the rough sketch that Alex made of the Cobra. The head is a dildo and the body is a chain, with alternating leather wrist cuffs and metal handcuffs, carefully labeled, making a stripy pattern. The hood is made of what is apparently one very large paddle, and the tail is a rope of anal beads.
After the initial amusement, Gabe's a little irritated. It looks like a fucking rattlesnake with a hood, for fuck's sake. The tail could have at least been made out of a whip, or something.
Also, he's surrounded by evil people and if he wasn't so vehemently anti-emo, he would totally go sulk in his bunk. As it is, he has to settle for pouting in the living room for five minutes.
*
Gabe smiles at Vicky T. and Ryland yelps dramatically from where he's sitting on the couch with Nate.
"Victoria!" he whispers loudly. "Gabe just smiled at you. Are you afraid he'll kill you?"
She shakes her head. "Nah. He can't kill me, it's in my contract. I made him promise before I joined the band. Besides, he knows I'd kick his ass." She sits down between Ryland and Nate, cuddling into the two of them. "Anyway, who else is he going to convince to play the keytar?"
No one makes a joke about another keytarist who went missing unexpectedly, but Gabe can't help but think about it. He's just tired of this, is all. He doesn't mind them having their joke, but it's gone on for a little too long.
*
It's Warmer in the Basement is sixth in their lineup that night. Gabe skips it.
*
"Gabe," Alex says once they get back to the bus, freshly clean and coming down off the post-show high. "Gabe, we're sorry."
Ryland, Nate and Vicky T. all nod agreement, sitting down on the couch next to Gabe and trying to hug him all at once.
"It's okay," Gabe says, covered by hands and arms - not that he's complaining, mind. "It's just - I dunno, how would you like to have people talking about how creepy you are all the time?"
"You're not creepy," Nate tells him.
"And we don't actually think you're a murderer," Ryland adds helpfully. Gabe raises an eyebrow.
"Let us make it up to you," Vicky T. says, her smile devious and her hand stroking absently across his chest.
"Yeah, okay," Gabe agrees quickly. "Only... not in here. At least not until we get the pictures taken down."
*
Later Alex, his head pillowed on Gabe's stomach, hums contentedly. "So what is Gabe's basement like anyway, itty-bitty Nate?"
Nate doesn't even make a face at the name, just settles himself more comfortably between Alex and Vicky T. "He had these really bright lightbulbs," he mutters. "Except then he forgot to pay the electricity bill one time and so I tripped every time I got up in the middle of the night to pee. And the heat was always on too high and there was a snake of the month calendar on the wall, but the bed was really comfortable." He yawns. "And there was a stack of porn in the corner."
"That's such a lie," Gabe says. It wasn't in the corner, it was hidden in the closet.
"Doesn't William describe the basement in the article Pete wrote?" Victoria asks, her hand wrapped loosely around Ryland's forearm. Her foot is twined with Gabe's.
Alex scoffs. "I don't trust that. Gabe would totally lock us in his basement before he would lock Bill up. Right, Gabe?"
"Of course," Gabe says, and yawns. "Don't be ridiculous, dude. If I was going to lock anyone in my basement you guys would totally be my first choices."
"That's all that really matters," Alex murmurs into Gabe's stomach, already falling asleep. "Always us."
Gabe smiles, running a hand through Alex's hair, and closes his eyes. "Always you," he agrees.
Title: It's All in the Eyes
Author: DF
Fandom/Pairing: Cobra GSF
Summary In which Gabe is not a psycho killer. No, really.
Notes: Ridiculous beyond belief. Please forgive me for this one. Inspired by this picspam.
Disclaimer: I'm pretty sure this isn't real, but I can't make any guarantees. Who knows, I might be psychic.
"You know," Ryland says thoughtfully, "you really do look like a psycho killer in these pictures."
This is how it starts.
*
"Do it again," Alex commands.
Sighing, Gabe shoots Alex the look he usually only gives the camera. He likes to think of it as smouldering. Apparently, the rest of the world thinks of it as creepy as fuck. Well, except for Alex, who just finds it hysterical.
"Again!" Alex says when Gabe lets the expression fall.
"Alex," Gabe says, rolling his eyes. "Seriously, it's not that funny."
"Oh, Gabriel, how wrong you are." Alex sits up a little straighter on the couch and claps his hands. Seriously, fucking claps his hands like a fucking five-year old or something. Who the hell claps their hands anymore? Well, maybe Brendon Urie; Gabe totally wouldn't put it past him. "Again."
Gabe obligingly gives Alex The Look, eyes half-lidded, a little smirk playing around the corners of his mouth. Alex bursts out laughing.
"What the hell are you two doing?" Vicky T. demands, wandering in and maybe swaying her hips a little more than is truly necessary. Gabe appreciates it; she's good to him like that.
"Gabe's crazy mass murderer face," Alex tells her earnestly.
"What crazy mass murderer face?"
Alex looks horrified. "The crazy mass murderer face! The one he makes at all the cameras! Gabe, make the face."
"No," Gabe tries to say, but Alex looks pretty obstinate, and Gabe's always been really bad at not giving in to his band. He gives Victoria The Look.
"Oh, his fuck-me face," she says casually.
"Yes!" Gabe shouts. He makes a face at Alex. "Not everyone thinks it's creepy!" Both Vicky T. and Alex ignore him.
"His what?" Alex asks, raising his eyebrows.
"Girls have fuck-me shoes, Gabe has a fuck-me face," Victoria explains patiently. "The look he gives the camera like he's secretly telling it that he just wants it to fuck him until he can't even walk anymore." She sits down next to Alex, crossing her legs and resting her arm over the back of the couch. "Although now that you mention it, it is kind of creepy."
"It's so not creepy!" Gabe protests. Obviously he's still being ignored, though, because neither of them so much as turn to look at him.
"No, explain that about the fuck-me face again," Alex says, looking at Vicky T. attentively and leaning towards her a little. She smirks.
"What, how it makes him look like he's saying that he wants you to bend him over the nearest flat surface and fuck him until he can't even remember his own name?" she asks casually, her voice deepening slightly. "Or else just pound into him nice and low, taking your time so that he's begging for it? Or -"
"Gabe," Alex says, his own voice low. "Make the face again."
Gabe thinks about saying no. Honestly, he does.
Okay, that's a lie, but before he's done more than quirk up the corner of his mouth, Alex and Victoria are dragging him back to the bunks, so it doesn't particularly matter.
*
"It's still kind of creepy," Alex says later, stretching. Gabe watches the muscles in his chest shift.
"Shut up," he says, although he's a little too relaxed right now for it to have much bite.
*
The next morning, though, he's got plenty of bite. Mostly because when he, still not entirely awake, twitches open his curtain, he's greeted by a high-pitched scream. He almost falls out of bed.
"Aaah!" Ryland says, in what is apparently meant to be a girlish voice, which goes a little way to explaining why he could probably double as a dog whistle right now. "It's Gabe Saporta! Somebody help me, I don't want to go to the basement!" He runs off, kicking up his heels and flapping his arms, as the rest of Gabe's traitorous bandmates stand around laughing their asses off.
That is way too many exclamation points this early in the morning, Gabe decides. He pulls the curtains shut and goes back to sleep.
*
Somehow, oh so mysteriously, over the next few days every single photo of Gabe in which he is looking at the camera in a way that could possibly be construed as creepy, psychotic, devious, threatening, and /or sinister is found, printed out, and taped up in the living room.
Not only that - oh, no, Gabe isn't nearly lucky enough to have that be all - but that mysterious someone (although someones, plural, is much more likely, given the amount of diabolical giggling Gabe has heard coming from rooms he just happens not to be in) who printed out the pictures has also found entire online conversations where people discuss how creepy one Gabe Saporta is. It's like the entire living room of their bus is an FBI case file, or something.
"You know, there are online conversations where people just talk about how hot I am!" he protests after the print-outs make an appearance. "You couldn't have printed those instead?"
But no, all he gets is more laughter. Fuckers. He would stop sleeping with them, but he's pretty sure it would be completely unproductive. Also, stop having sex? He's not that much of a moron, thank you very much, and he's definitely not anxious to go back to his right hand and nothing else.
Still, though, he refuses to fool around in the living room anymore. It's not that he has an objection to the sight of his own face; it's just a little creepy to have dozens of little Gabes watching from the walls. He feels like they're enjoying it too much.
*
"And here we have Gabe Saporta, noted murder suspect and infamous sexual deviant," Ryland whispers, completely in character as Guy Ripley. Vicky T. is holding the camera, while Nate sits nearby and watches. Alex just hovers out of frame and tries not to crack up too badly.
"Guys..." Gabe groans.
"Ah, but the charges were dropped," Alex says, breaking in and attempting to keep a straight face. "All the victims have mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps we will never know the truth."
Gabe rolls his eyes.
"Gabe!" Ryland cries, British accent still going strong. "Do you know anything about their disappearances?"
"No comment," Gabe tells the camera. His usual reaction to cameras proves to be his downfall, though; without his even realising it, slowly his eyelids begin to droop shut, his mouth to rise -
"And there is the infamous Saporta psycho face!" Ryland declares, motioning for Vicky T. to zoom in on Gabe. "It was this very smirk that first attracted the authorities to him."
"I hate you all," Gabe mutters, and thankfully, Ryland switches subjects -or at least interviewees, which Gabe is willing to settle for at this point.
"We're talking now to Nate Novarro, one of the key informers for the notorious Basement Killer's trial. Nate, are the rumors of Mr. Saporta's numerous murders correct?"
Nate blinks, momentarily surprised to suddenly have the camera turned on him, but he recovers like a champ. Gabe would be proud, except for the minor detail that they're pretending he's a mass murderer.
"I lived," Nate says slowly, "in his basement. For years."
Alex makes a sympathetic sound, and Ryland gasps in horror. Vicky T. just grins.
"So you must know details of this case," Ryland - Guy Ripley - says, but Nate shakes his head.
"Brainwashed - can't - say -" Nates breaks off, taking a deep breath before switching to a more normal tone of voice. "I can tell you about all the sex toys he kept down there, though. It was fucked up."
"You don't say?" Ryland asks, and Nate nods. Gabe takes that as his cue to leave.
As he's walking away, he hears Nate say, "There was this one that he liked to call the Cobra, and it was huge, right? And it was - it wasn't just one, it was made out of all different things, and he would take them apart and use them separately, and then put them back together -"
*
Everyone gets into it, and by everyone Gabe really means everyone. He wanders in the living room one morning to find an article taped up, right next to a picture of himself at a restaurant with a couple other guys. The article's heading reads:
It Really Is Warmer in the Basement: The Truth Behind Gabe Saporta and the Basement Murders
by Pete Wentz
Gabe scans it; a couple of phrases jump out, like, "Exclusive interview with William Beckett," and, "How has this man gone on for so long without anyone suspecting him?" There's also a paragraph about the danger "noted singer, music producer, and musical genius Patrick Stump" was potentially in when he helped Cobra Starship record their CD, but that's just Pete. He never can resist mentioning Patrick.
There's also a couple pictures of the "trial" done by the Butcher, and one of Gabe holding a bunch of weapons and covered in blood that Gabe suspects was drawn by Gerard Way. Which, the fuck. He and Gerard are buddies! Gerard should be on his side! (Although come to think of it, he had suspected that Gerard has been plotting revenge after the whole grinding-on-Mikey incident...)
But the kicker - the one that almost makes Gabe laugh despite himself - is the rough sketch that Alex made of the Cobra. The head is a dildo and the body is a chain, with alternating leather wrist cuffs and metal handcuffs, carefully labeled, making a stripy pattern. The hood is made of what is apparently one very large paddle, and the tail is a rope of anal beads.
After the initial amusement, Gabe's a little irritated. It looks like a fucking rattlesnake with a hood, for fuck's sake. The tail could have at least been made out of a whip, or something.
Also, he's surrounded by evil people and if he wasn't so vehemently anti-emo, he would totally go sulk in his bunk. As it is, he has to settle for pouting in the living room for five minutes.
*
Gabe smiles at Vicky T. and Ryland yelps dramatically from where he's sitting on the couch with Nate.
"Victoria!" he whispers loudly. "Gabe just smiled at you. Are you afraid he'll kill you?"
She shakes her head. "Nah. He can't kill me, it's in my contract. I made him promise before I joined the band. Besides, he knows I'd kick his ass." She sits down between Ryland and Nate, cuddling into the two of them. "Anyway, who else is he going to convince to play the keytar?"
No one makes a joke about another keytarist who went missing unexpectedly, but Gabe can't help but think about it. He's just tired of this, is all. He doesn't mind them having their joke, but it's gone on for a little too long.
*
It's Warmer in the Basement is sixth in their lineup that night. Gabe skips it.
*
"Gabe," Alex says once they get back to the bus, freshly clean and coming down off the post-show high. "Gabe, we're sorry."
Ryland, Nate and Vicky T. all nod agreement, sitting down on the couch next to Gabe and trying to hug him all at once.
"It's okay," Gabe says, covered by hands and arms - not that he's complaining, mind. "It's just - I dunno, how would you like to have people talking about how creepy you are all the time?"
"You're not creepy," Nate tells him.
"And we don't actually think you're a murderer," Ryland adds helpfully. Gabe raises an eyebrow.
"Let us make it up to you," Vicky T. says, her smile devious and her hand stroking absently across his chest.
"Yeah, okay," Gabe agrees quickly. "Only... not in here. At least not until we get the pictures taken down."
*
Later Alex, his head pillowed on Gabe's stomach, hums contentedly. "So what is Gabe's basement like anyway, itty-bitty Nate?"
Nate doesn't even make a face at the name, just settles himself more comfortably between Alex and Vicky T. "He had these really bright lightbulbs," he mutters. "Except then he forgot to pay the electricity bill one time and so I tripped every time I got up in the middle of the night to pee. And the heat was always on too high and there was a snake of the month calendar on the wall, but the bed was really comfortable." He yawns. "And there was a stack of porn in the corner."
"That's such a lie," Gabe says. It wasn't in the corner, it was hidden in the closet.
"Doesn't William describe the basement in the article Pete wrote?" Victoria asks, her hand wrapped loosely around Ryland's forearm. Her foot is twined with Gabe's.
Alex scoffs. "I don't trust that. Gabe would totally lock us in his basement before he would lock Bill up. Right, Gabe?"
"Of course," Gabe says, and yawns. "Don't be ridiculous, dude. If I was going to lock anyone in my basement you guys would totally be my first choices."
"That's all that really matters," Alex murmurs into Gabe's stomach, already falling asleep. "Always us."
Gabe smiles, running a hand through Alex's hair, and closes his eyes. "Always you," he agrees.