Fic: "Winners Use The Door" (rpf)
Back in...May, I guess, Demi Lovato and Gabe Saporta had a Twitter-based interaction that made some of us laugh like sociopaths. pirateygoodness asked for fic. I failed for a month and a half. I don't know if you want this still, bb, but if you do...here? :D?
Title from "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)." Thanks to the usual suspects for listening to me go on about this. The opinions expressed by characters herein are not necessarily the opinions of the management.
(This close to clearing out my WIP list, you guys. THISCLOSE.)
His phone rings way too fucking early in the morning. Time zones are balls.
"What?" he growls, trying to keep his pillow over his eyes.
"You leave her alone."
Gabe blinks under the pillow, trying to think of who he knows who can pull off that particular variety of stern, unamused voice. "Bill?"
"Leave her alone."
"I thought you weren't speaking to me because of the blog thing." Some people just can't handle being called a sweetheart and a sensitive guy. Some people need to not be so sensitive about being sensitive.
"I'm not. This is a special exception to tell you to leave Demi alone. She's a sweet, nice girl and she doesn't need the Gabe Saporta Experience."
Gabe lies there for a minute, utterly lost, until he remembers. Late-night Twittering. Right. "I'm touched that you still read my Twitter, Bilvy-bear."
"Hands off the Disney Princess. I mean it."
Bill hangs up and Gabe shoves his phone to the bottom of his duffel bag before passing out again.
When he wakes up, his band has covered his bunk with handwritten signs declaring "Just Say No To Jailbait." That, of course, means Gabe has to spend two hours Googling the age of consent in various states and making his case that Demi is legal in many of them. He doesn't know why he's doing this; she is a nice girl, and she should be dating sexless robots like the Jonas Brothers. The industry will chew her up and spit her out fast enough anyway without any help.
He just can't stand to let his band win arguments.
This one devolves pretty fast from discussing age of consent to speculating on how great a Demi/Victoria sex tape would be to Victoria spraying them all in the face with Febreze and then locking herself in the back lounge.
And then they're in Seattle and he's got shit to do, so he kind of forgets about Miss Disney. Until they get to LA.
**
Gabe is not exactly sure what this event is, or even what club he's at; the message Pete left on his phone was pretty incoherent, so he deleted it, and then a car showed up and he had to put on pants before he could track down any answers.
But it's an event at a club, which means there's loud music and comped booze, and both of those things are great. He does the appropriate amount of mingling and then finds a booth, settling in with a drink and an instruction to the waitress to keep more coming.
He closes his eyes at one point, momentarily disoriented by the noise and the lights, and opens them to find that he's not alone at his table anymore.
"Hi, Gabe!" Demi beams at him, grinning all wide and pretty and pleased with herself. "I didn't know you were going to be here."
"Neither did I." He smiles back. "Kind of a spur of the moment thing. How are you doing, hon? With the whole..." He waves his hand, suddenly stumped on how to refer to that situation. "Joe...thing?"
"That?" She makes a face like she's gagging on something and snatches his drink out from in front of him. "That was, like, a week ago, Gabe. I'm totally over that. Totally. So over it."
He nods. "That's good. It's better not to dwell on things."
"Totally." She downs the rest of his drink in a few long swallows and licks the glass.
"You know, where I'm from, that's pretty much looking for a fight." He points at the glass off her confused look. "Taking somebody else's drink."
She smiles again, even wider and cuter and more drunkly than before. "I bet you're not going to fight me. But you can spank me if you want."
He blinks a few times, suddenly aware that he's going to need either an escape route or a lot more to drink, because he is most definitely in over his head. He's not very familiar with the feeling, and furthermore he doesn't like it.
"I'm pretty sure that wouldn't go over well with your security and PR people," he says finally. "I only enjoy getting my ass kicked by large, burly men under special circumstances. Or when I'm paying for it."
She laughs, covering her face with her hands and peeking at him from between her fingers. Shit. She's adorable. And wasted. He would totally punch a Jonas Brother for her, if one of them was available.
"You're so funny," she says. "Joe isn't funny at all. Joe's an idiot."
He has absolutely no idea how to respond to that. Luckily the waitress puts a new drink in front of him, and he can kill a minute in pursuit of drinking it way too fast. "I'm sure he's got his good side. Somewhere."
"He's nice," she says, frowning a little. "Except when he's an asshole."
"I hate to be the one to break it to you, baby, but all guys are like that."
She lets her hand fall to the table with a smack and pouts at him. "Don't ruin my dreams, Gabe!"
"Sorry, but it's true. I bet if you asked my ex-girlfriend, she'd say the exact same thing about me. With added cursing, 'cause New York girls, they've got mouths on them."
She takes a drink from another passing waitress and tilts her head, looking at him through her lashes. "When did you break up?"
He shrugs, playing with the empty glass. "Ah, six months ago or something. Ancient history."
"How long were you together?"
"Four years."
Her eyes get wide, and she gulps down half her drink. "Wow."
That's kind of an abrupt reminder that four years ago, Demi Lovato was in middle school. Fucking awesome, Saporta. You've either got game or you're a total perv. "Like I said, ancient history."
"Still." She scoots her chair closer, and whoa, hey, that's her hand landing warm and determined on his thigh. "That must've been so hard for you."
He looks down at her hand, back up at her face, and this is it, the moment of truth, the moment where he has to decide if he's going to do the right thing or the fun thing.
He leans in closer and carefully tucks a stray wisp of hair back behind her ear. "You want to dance?"
**
He can tell when rumors start getting Tweeted based on when his phone starts buzzing in his pocket, but he ignores it, concentrating on the music and the way Demi is moving to it. Dancing with a partner is different from just being a jackass out on the floor, and it surprises him a little how good it feels to fall back into that, playing off somebody.
The club's doing something weird with purple and green lights that make nine-tenths of the people on the floor look like zombies, but somehow it's working for her. Probably being a gorgeous seventeen-year-old popstar has something to do with it. It's nice to appreciate aesthetically, that's all, just like he's appreciating the way her little black top and tiny silver skirt cling just right. And her shoes. Those heels are four inches if they're one, and she's fucking working them.
He is so very close to getting himself in serious trouble.
That point gets driven home when he looks up and sees Demi's security watching him. They really are very large dudes. And when they catch his gaze, they make a very over-exaggerated point of cracking their knuckles and smiling at him.
He runs the self-destructive vs. self-preservation math again, compares it to the aesthetics vs. having his teeth knocked down his throat math, and comes up with a pretty definitive answer. Damn it. His dad will be so proud of him, and his band is going to make fun of him so hard.
Well, at least he'll have the satisfaction of...fuck it, no he won't, but at least he'll have all of his body parts intact. That's important. He needs those.
He starts steering Demi across the floor, angling her toward her people and leaning in close to talk in her ear. "Hey, this was awesome. I really had a good time." She gives him a confused, startled look and he talks faster, squeezing her wrist gently. "Seriously, it was way awesome, and you should come to the show, okay? Come backstage and say hi. While you're sober. I bet we could have a really awesome, sober conversation. About stuff. Life, the universe. Music. Uh. Stuff."
Her eyes narrow as she figures out exactly what he's saying, and thank whatever higher power watches out for Cobras, they've reached the edge of the floor and he can deposit her safely in front of the large dudes. "Have a great night! Drink some water! Bye!"
He bolts for the exit, hoping his car gets there quickly and gets him back to the hotel even faster, because otherwise he is totally going to drunk-dial a lot of people that he shouldn't, including his ex-girlfriend, and humiliate himself very, very badly.
So a pretty typical Friday night, in other words, except for the part where he didn't get laid. Because he is a good person. Damn it.
**
Gabe blows the audience one last kiss and jogs offstage, tugging his t-shirt up to wipe the sweat off his face. Good show. Decent show. Good enough for LA and this point in the tour show.
Fuck, he is tired.
He heads back toward the dressing room, almost falling onto his face as he comes around a corner and has to stop short, because the hallway's blocked by a bunch of people. The 3OH!3 guys, whom he can just kick until they move, and then shorter people in pretty outfits--wait, those are girls, so no kicking, then.
"'scuse me," he says, squeezing between the people and the wall and kicking Nat in the shins. "I've got a thing."
"Gabe! Wait!"
He wipes his face again and peeks over the edge of the t-shirt, and immediately wishes he'd done something with slightly more dignity and coolness, because that's Demi moving away from the group and following him down the hall, beaming up at him happily. "Oh, hey! Hey, honey. How are you?"
"I'm good. Great show."
"Thanks." Travie comes down the hall from the opposite direction and Gabe reaches out, snagging his arm and tugging him in close enough that he can lean on him and use him as a protective shield if needed. "Thank you."
Demi gives Travie a quick smile and then steps in closer, touching Gabe's arm lightly. "I just wanted to say thanks for the other night."
Travie's eyebrow goes up and he pinches Gabe really hard. Ow. Asshole. "Yeah. It was fun."
"I mean, you stopped me from making a huge mistake."
Gabe blinks once, then again. "Um. That's...that's great."
"I really, really appreciate it. You have no idea."
"Oh, I think I have some idea." He realizes Travie's going for his phone and punches him in the ribs. "I really do have to go. Have a great night."
"You too!" She bounces off back to her friends and Gabe stands there, giving up and letting Travie get his phone and start texting.
"Not one word," Gabe says finally.
"I didn't say anything."
"Being a good person sucks."
"Nah, you'll be rewarded at some point."
"But not right now. Right now I'm pretty fucked and you're going to make sure that all of my friends make fun of me."
"Yep."
Gabe sighs deeply and heads for the dressing room. He has a lot of sulking to do. And drinking. He doesn't even want to think about going back to the bus.
The Dreamwidth copy of this post has
comments. Comment there or here, as you like!
Title from "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)." Thanks to the usual suspects for listening to me go on about this. The opinions expressed by characters herein are not necessarily the opinions of the management.
(This close to clearing out my WIP list, you guys. THISCLOSE.)
His phone rings way too fucking early in the morning. Time zones are balls.
"What?" he growls, trying to keep his pillow over his eyes.
"You leave her alone."
Gabe blinks under the pillow, trying to think of who he knows who can pull off that particular variety of stern, unamused voice. "Bill?"
"Leave her alone."
"I thought you weren't speaking to me because of the blog thing." Some people just can't handle being called a sweetheart and a sensitive guy. Some people need to not be so sensitive about being sensitive.
"I'm not. This is a special exception to tell you to leave Demi alone. She's a sweet, nice girl and she doesn't need the Gabe Saporta Experience."
Gabe lies there for a minute, utterly lost, until he remembers. Late-night Twittering. Right. "I'm touched that you still read my Twitter, Bilvy-bear."
"Hands off the Disney Princess. I mean it."
Bill hangs up and Gabe shoves his phone to the bottom of his duffel bag before passing out again.
When he wakes up, his band has covered his bunk with handwritten signs declaring "Just Say No To Jailbait." That, of course, means Gabe has to spend two hours Googling the age of consent in various states and making his case that Demi is legal in many of them. He doesn't know why he's doing this; she is a nice girl, and she should be dating sexless robots like the Jonas Brothers. The industry will chew her up and spit her out fast enough anyway without any help.
He just can't stand to let his band win arguments.
This one devolves pretty fast from discussing age of consent to speculating on how great a Demi/Victoria sex tape would be to Victoria spraying them all in the face with Febreze and then locking herself in the back lounge.
And then they're in Seattle and he's got shit to do, so he kind of forgets about Miss Disney. Until they get to LA.
**
Gabe is not exactly sure what this event is, or even what club he's at; the message Pete left on his phone was pretty incoherent, so he deleted it, and then a car showed up and he had to put on pants before he could track down any answers.
But it's an event at a club, which means there's loud music and comped booze, and both of those things are great. He does the appropriate amount of mingling and then finds a booth, settling in with a drink and an instruction to the waitress to keep more coming.
He closes his eyes at one point, momentarily disoriented by the noise and the lights, and opens them to find that he's not alone at his table anymore.
"Hi, Gabe!" Demi beams at him, grinning all wide and pretty and pleased with herself. "I didn't know you were going to be here."
"Neither did I." He smiles back. "Kind of a spur of the moment thing. How are you doing, hon? With the whole..." He waves his hand, suddenly stumped on how to refer to that situation. "Joe...thing?"
"That?" She makes a face like she's gagging on something and snatches his drink out from in front of him. "That was, like, a week ago, Gabe. I'm totally over that. Totally. So over it."
He nods. "That's good. It's better not to dwell on things."
"Totally." She downs the rest of his drink in a few long swallows and licks the glass.
"You know, where I'm from, that's pretty much looking for a fight." He points at the glass off her confused look. "Taking somebody else's drink."
She smiles again, even wider and cuter and more drunkly than before. "I bet you're not going to fight me. But you can spank me if you want."
He blinks a few times, suddenly aware that he's going to need either an escape route or a lot more to drink, because he is most definitely in over his head. He's not very familiar with the feeling, and furthermore he doesn't like it.
"I'm pretty sure that wouldn't go over well with your security and PR people," he says finally. "I only enjoy getting my ass kicked by large, burly men under special circumstances. Or when I'm paying for it."
She laughs, covering her face with her hands and peeking at him from between her fingers. Shit. She's adorable. And wasted. He would totally punch a Jonas Brother for her, if one of them was available.
"You're so funny," she says. "Joe isn't funny at all. Joe's an idiot."
He has absolutely no idea how to respond to that. Luckily the waitress puts a new drink in front of him, and he can kill a minute in pursuit of drinking it way too fast. "I'm sure he's got his good side. Somewhere."
"He's nice," she says, frowning a little. "Except when he's an asshole."
"I hate to be the one to break it to you, baby, but all guys are like that."
She lets her hand fall to the table with a smack and pouts at him. "Don't ruin my dreams, Gabe!"
"Sorry, but it's true. I bet if you asked my ex-girlfriend, she'd say the exact same thing about me. With added cursing, 'cause New York girls, they've got mouths on them."
She takes a drink from another passing waitress and tilts her head, looking at him through her lashes. "When did you break up?"
He shrugs, playing with the empty glass. "Ah, six months ago or something. Ancient history."
"How long were you together?"
"Four years."
Her eyes get wide, and she gulps down half her drink. "Wow."
That's kind of an abrupt reminder that four years ago, Demi Lovato was in middle school. Fucking awesome, Saporta. You've either got game or you're a total perv. "Like I said, ancient history."
"Still." She scoots her chair closer, and whoa, hey, that's her hand landing warm and determined on his thigh. "That must've been so hard for you."
He looks down at her hand, back up at her face, and this is it, the moment of truth, the moment where he has to decide if he's going to do the right thing or the fun thing.
He leans in closer and carefully tucks a stray wisp of hair back behind her ear. "You want to dance?"
**
He can tell when rumors start getting Tweeted based on when his phone starts buzzing in his pocket, but he ignores it, concentrating on the music and the way Demi is moving to it. Dancing with a partner is different from just being a jackass out on the floor, and it surprises him a little how good it feels to fall back into that, playing off somebody.
The club's doing something weird with purple and green lights that make nine-tenths of the people on the floor look like zombies, but somehow it's working for her. Probably being a gorgeous seventeen-year-old popstar has something to do with it. It's nice to appreciate aesthetically, that's all, just like he's appreciating the way her little black top and tiny silver skirt cling just right. And her shoes. Those heels are four inches if they're one, and she's fucking working them.
He is so very close to getting himself in serious trouble.
That point gets driven home when he looks up and sees Demi's security watching him. They really are very large dudes. And when they catch his gaze, they make a very over-exaggerated point of cracking their knuckles and smiling at him.
He runs the self-destructive vs. self-preservation math again, compares it to the aesthetics vs. having his teeth knocked down his throat math, and comes up with a pretty definitive answer. Damn it. His dad will be so proud of him, and his band is going to make fun of him so hard.
Well, at least he'll have the satisfaction of...fuck it, no he won't, but at least he'll have all of his body parts intact. That's important. He needs those.
He starts steering Demi across the floor, angling her toward her people and leaning in close to talk in her ear. "Hey, this was awesome. I really had a good time." She gives him a confused, startled look and he talks faster, squeezing her wrist gently. "Seriously, it was way awesome, and you should come to the show, okay? Come backstage and say hi. While you're sober. I bet we could have a really awesome, sober conversation. About stuff. Life, the universe. Music. Uh. Stuff."
Her eyes narrow as she figures out exactly what he's saying, and thank whatever higher power watches out for Cobras, they've reached the edge of the floor and he can deposit her safely in front of the large dudes. "Have a great night! Drink some water! Bye!"
He bolts for the exit, hoping his car gets there quickly and gets him back to the hotel even faster, because otherwise he is totally going to drunk-dial a lot of people that he shouldn't, including his ex-girlfriend, and humiliate himself very, very badly.
So a pretty typical Friday night, in other words, except for the part where he didn't get laid. Because he is a good person. Damn it.
**
Gabe blows the audience one last kiss and jogs offstage, tugging his t-shirt up to wipe the sweat off his face. Good show. Decent show. Good enough for LA and this point in the tour show.
Fuck, he is tired.
He heads back toward the dressing room, almost falling onto his face as he comes around a corner and has to stop short, because the hallway's blocked by a bunch of people. The 3OH!3 guys, whom he can just kick until they move, and then shorter people in pretty outfits--wait, those are girls, so no kicking, then.
"'scuse me," he says, squeezing between the people and the wall and kicking Nat in the shins. "I've got a thing."
"Gabe! Wait!"
He wipes his face again and peeks over the edge of the t-shirt, and immediately wishes he'd done something with slightly more dignity and coolness, because that's Demi moving away from the group and following him down the hall, beaming up at him happily. "Oh, hey! Hey, honey. How are you?"
"I'm good. Great show."
"Thanks." Travie comes down the hall from the opposite direction and Gabe reaches out, snagging his arm and tugging him in close enough that he can lean on him and use him as a protective shield if needed. "Thank you."
Demi gives Travie a quick smile and then steps in closer, touching Gabe's arm lightly. "I just wanted to say thanks for the other night."
Travie's eyebrow goes up and he pinches Gabe really hard. Ow. Asshole. "Yeah. It was fun."
"I mean, you stopped me from making a huge mistake."
Gabe blinks once, then again. "Um. That's...that's great."
"I really, really appreciate it. You have no idea."
"Oh, I think I have some idea." He realizes Travie's going for his phone and punches him in the ribs. "I really do have to go. Have a great night."
"You too!" She bounces off back to her friends and Gabe stands there, giving up and letting Travie get his phone and start texting.
"Not one word," Gabe says finally.
"I didn't say anything."
"Being a good person sucks."
"Nah, you'll be rewarded at some point."
"But not right now. Right now I'm pretty fucked and you're going to make sure that all of my friends make fun of me."
"Yep."
Gabe sighs deeply and heads for the dressing room. He has a lot of sulking to do. And drinking. He doesn't even want to think about going back to the bus.
The Dreamwidth copy of this post has
comments. Comment there or here, as you like!