Facets [standalone]
Title: Facets [standalone]
Author: minus_four
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gabilliam
POV: 3rd
Summary: "Yours?" William questions automatically, because he twitters, sure, and sometimes writes on the Cobras' myspace page, but as a rule Gabe Saporta doesn't blog.
Disclaimer: This only happened in my brain (as far as I know).
Author Notes: This is pretty short (2140 words) and... I don't really know what it is. Me breaking through my block of hating everything I type, I guess. Go me! Basically it stemmed from me getting a Tumblr to follow other people's Tumblrs and then I thought about how cool Gabe's Tumblr would be but I obviously had to insert some angst (but also sap bc hai, is me).
It's 1.43 in the morning when William rolls over, his arm automatically flailing out to find where Gabe might have possibly moved away in the few feet of space in their bed William himself hasn't managed to sprawl across with all four of his own limbs. Even if he starts the night curled up on the opposite side of the bed to Gabe (they've tried it once or twice, Gabe gleefully calling William his freaky little science experiment for the entire day following both times) it's inevitable that during the night, somehow without even waking up or realising he's done it, William will have rolled, crawled, and flailed his way over until he's able to attach himself to Gabe's side like a koala (thank you very much, Mike Carden, for providing the factually based simile to Gabe's own description).
So, it takes all of five seconds for William to realise he's alone in their bed, but about another half a minute for him to actually wake up enough to squint at the glowing numbers of the alarm clock, frowning.
It's not unusual for Gabe to not sleep some nights, but it is more unusual at least for Gabe to start off sleeping and abandon the night's rest halfway through, so William waits until the alarm clock flicks through a few numbers before getting up himself, grabbing one of Gabe's hoodies and pulling it on as he walks out of the bedroom, bare feet padding their way into the kitchen where only a faint glow, the familiar beacon of a laptop providing the only light in the room drawing William towards it.
Gabe's sat on a stool at the counter, scrolling down whatever page he's on with the index finger of his right hand, a mug held at chin height in his left, elbow resting on the counter's surface. William can't make out what's on the screen even from a few feet away but it doesn't matter, he suspects. The second William announces his presence, he's pretty sure Gabe will shut down whatever site he's on, keep whatever it is hidden, and William won't spy.
It wouldn’t exactly be the first time.
There are certain… things that Gabe refuses to talk about, always, and they differ in both nature and importance, and William really wouldn't care - and tries desperately not to, because he knew Gabe for long enough before this whole thing between them started; fell into it after the groupie-acquaintance-labelmate-goodfriends-bestfriends-lovers transition happened almost seamlessly, somehow - if it wasn't that he also knows exactly why Gabe hides very specific parts of himself the way he does.
They don't discuss it. Ever. Because these things don't even exist, okay? Except they do, and Gabe is constantly keeping whatever they are away from Bill, because he wants to protect him. William knows, he knows without the words and the conversation they'll never have because it's Gabe, and as many complicated and usually fucking awesome things there are about Gabe Saporta, some things just aren't.
And William hates it, he really does. Some days he just wants to yell and scream at Gabe just to make him see that he's not made of glass; he's not going to fucking shatter just because Gabe's scared or depressed or angry for no reason or even, you know, that other thing which despite his self proclaimed strength he can't quite bring himself to think and only really does because of that one time he managed to stay more sober than Gabe, and as they walked back to Gabe's apartment some discarded newspaper in a trash can proclaimed the occurrence of a teen suicide and Gabe stopped, squinted at it in the dimly lit street and remarked that he "tried to do that, once. But it didn't stick."
Gabe forgot, William never could.
And it's not like he's stupid. William can still rattle off pretty much every Midtown lyric from memory, and over the years the music might have changed but William's never seen Gabe write a lie yet.
He doesn't actually lie to William, which he supposes is some way of Gabe justifying it to himself. He doesn't lie, just hides, which William might argue was the same thing if he wasn't too scared to start this whole particular discussion with Gabe for the fear that it could end everything. Ever since Gabe scribbled that leave me alone on an old napkin and walked away, and William followed him, reaching up to put an arm around his shoulders only to have Gabe shake him off coldly, turning to give him a wordless (not allowed to speak, maybe not able to sing the way he did again) look, angry and dark and enough to make William take a step back; William learned that there were times with Gabe when you just didn't push.
So William's used to it, really. Used to parts of Gabe being locked off, both past and present thoughts kept secret and silent for reasons William doesn't understand but forces himself to accept, everyday. William doesn't believe in soul mates or perfect relationships, in two unique people being each other's puzzle pieces which fit together effortlessly. There's always overlap and differences and the need to just accept, and love for who the person is rather than who you want them to be. So William does.
"Hey," William speaks softly into the silence and Gabe doesn't jump. They're both creatures of habit so it's no surprise now whenever William follows Gabe downstairs after a little while.
"Hey." The smile on Gabe's face as he turns to look at William isn't strange, but William is kind of surprised when Gabe doesn't hurry to click out of the page he's on or shut down the laptop, just pulls another stool over until it's touching his own and he slides the laptop across the counter slightly so it's in a more central position to the two stools.
When William goes over and sits on the second stool after a couple of seconds Gabe just hands over the mug of coffee before leaning over to press his lips to William's temple.
"What are you doing?" he asks Gabe, resting both elbows on the counter and cupping his hands around the warm mug, tipping it to take a sip of coffee - Gabe's coffee, he smiles to himself at the thought.
"Tumbling," comes the reply, and William just looks at him until Gabe speaks again. "Okay, maybe it's not supposed to be used as a verb, but - whatever, okay. It's a thing." Gabe gestures at the screen in front of them and William finally lets himself look at it properly, now he's been given the instruction, or permission maybe. "It's a Tumblr, you know?" Gabe says, shrugging. "It's mine."
"Yours?" William questions automatically, because he twitters, sure, and sometimes writes on the Cobras' myspace page, but as a rule Gabe Saporta doesn't blog.
"Yeah." Gabe nods, and William isn't so surprised, really. He's seen Gabe write page after page after page in various notebooks, after all. What he's more surprised by is that he's being allowed to see it; right there in front of him, the web address and everything. He fights the urge to actually ask the question and loses.
"And I'm allowed to see?"
"Bilvy," Gabe frowns slightly, "why wouldn't you be allowed to see?"
"Because..." William fidgets then, suddenly uncomfortable just because Gabe's eyes on him, the older man having swivelled to look at William more head on, just have a kind of intensity to them, something William sees fairly often when Gabe's gaze is directed at him, like it's a case of looking into him rather than at, somehow. "I know you don't always want me to know... everything," he finishes cautiously, watches as understanding passes across Gabe's eyes - maybe even guilt, William thinks as the same feeling twists in his own stomach for a moment. It passes though, as a smile creeps onto Gabe's face, one corner of his lips slowly curving upward, but quickly followed by the other.
"This is hardly everything," he says, with maybe just a hint of apology in his words. "But you can see it," Gabe offers, almost bordering on shy as he shurgs in a show of nonchalance that they both know is fake (because most parts of himself, William reminds himself, Gabe never even thinks about trying to hide). "If you want." And even as Gabe speaks William feels the smile spread across his own face as he straight away shifts his hold on the mug to the handle, leaving one hand free to scroll down the page, taking in the different content of the ten posts on the page; pictures and snippets of text, sometimes just single words.
There's nothing to signify it is as being Gabe's unless you knew it was, though William does recognise the occasional quoted lyric of his own, one or two of Gabe's but more of the new Cobra have been working on, parts William knows he's proudest of, and more of other lyrics too. William recognises some of the photos posted as being Julian's, some random shots he's seen before on Gabe's laptop; random snapshots of life on tour or in the city Gabe loves so much. William sees parts of himself too, only parts where he and Gabe were messing around with his camera; his hands or his and Gabe's feet tangled where they were lying together in bed, and William's glad to see that Gabe respected his rule of 'nowhere on the internet anywhere or no sex ever again' for some of the other photos of other parts of him Gabe persuaded him were 'art' later. Those photos are accompanied by some quote from some beautiful poem which William doesn't deserve, surely could never match up to. Some longer chunks of writing in smaller font, William recognises as Gabe; as his thoughts and observations on life and people and society and how that shit works, or more often doesn't.
It's not explicit. There's no part where anything signed off with 'because I'm Gabe Saporta and I can say that' or something, but it's Gabe in a way that's both more and less clear than that. And William drinks it all in, every word, clicking and scrolling through every page while Gabe just lets him, just waits until William finally finishes and sits back a little, turning slightly so he's facing Gabe more.
After a pause, he just kind of breathes out a, "Wow." He pauses again to give Gabe a small smile before leaning forward to give him a short kiss on the lips, drawing back just enough to murmur a quiet "thank you", William giving him one more kiss before putting the mug (which, along with its contents, had gotten pretty cold by now) down on the counter and settling himself against Gabe's side. Gabe automatically wraps an arm around William's waist, his hand resting just above William's right hip, hold gentle but secure and William sighs contentedly as he rests his head slightly sideways on Gabe's shoulder, William just looking at the words left on the screen; his own right there at the top making a warm sense of happiness rise from somewhere deep in his chest. We were part of something ours, and ours alone. Anywhere was home.
It's not... everything. It's not what William so desperately wants; just to understand - or at least have the chance to understand what goes on in Gabe's head. It's not any of those conversations they'll probably never have and it's still just facets of Gabe painted in pixels on a page, but it's still there. It's still something, and it's still something of Gabe that no one in the world shares with him except William.
"I'm sorry," Gabe whispers and it takes William a second of two to register it before he straightens up a little, pulling back enough to look at Gabe's eyes without removing the contact of his hand, now slid up and across to settle at the nape of Gabe's neck, "if I can't always give you enough."
"Shut up," William says the words on instinct, and his tone is light, but there's enough of an edge to them to tell Gabe that he means it, at least in that small way. "You give me more than I ever let myself believe I deserved, every day."
The next day, after the two men spent the post-dawn morning hours in bed, William curled up against Gabe's side, William might have forgotten his exact words and kept hold of only the sentiment in his mind, but Gabe didn't forget them because he didn't want to.
Author: minus_four
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gabilliam
POV: 3rd
Summary: "Yours?" William questions automatically, because he twitters, sure, and sometimes writes on the Cobras' myspace page, but as a rule Gabe Saporta doesn't blog.
Disclaimer: This only happened in my brain (as far as I know).
Author Notes: This is pretty short (2140 words) and... I don't really know what it is. Me breaking through my block of hating everything I type, I guess. Go me! Basically it stemmed from me getting a Tumblr to follow other people's Tumblrs and then I thought about how cool Gabe's Tumblr would be but I obviously had to insert some angst (but also sap bc hai, is me).
It's 1.43 in the morning when William rolls over, his arm automatically flailing out to find where Gabe might have possibly moved away in the few feet of space in their bed William himself hasn't managed to sprawl across with all four of his own limbs. Even if he starts the night curled up on the opposite side of the bed to Gabe (they've tried it once or twice, Gabe gleefully calling William his freaky little science experiment for the entire day following both times) it's inevitable that during the night, somehow without even waking up or realising he's done it, William will have rolled, crawled, and flailed his way over until he's able to attach himself to Gabe's side like a koala (thank you very much, Mike Carden, for providing the factually based simile to Gabe's own description).
So, it takes all of five seconds for William to realise he's alone in their bed, but about another half a minute for him to actually wake up enough to squint at the glowing numbers of the alarm clock, frowning.
It's not unusual for Gabe to not sleep some nights, but it is more unusual at least for Gabe to start off sleeping and abandon the night's rest halfway through, so William waits until the alarm clock flicks through a few numbers before getting up himself, grabbing one of Gabe's hoodies and pulling it on as he walks out of the bedroom, bare feet padding their way into the kitchen where only a faint glow, the familiar beacon of a laptop providing the only light in the room drawing William towards it.
Gabe's sat on a stool at the counter, scrolling down whatever page he's on with the index finger of his right hand, a mug held at chin height in his left, elbow resting on the counter's surface. William can't make out what's on the screen even from a few feet away but it doesn't matter, he suspects. The second William announces his presence, he's pretty sure Gabe will shut down whatever site he's on, keep whatever it is hidden, and William won't spy.
It wouldn’t exactly be the first time.
There are certain… things that Gabe refuses to talk about, always, and they differ in both nature and importance, and William really wouldn't care - and tries desperately not to, because he knew Gabe for long enough before this whole thing between them started; fell into it after the groupie-acquaintance-labelmate-goodfriends-bestfriends-lovers transition happened almost seamlessly, somehow - if it wasn't that he also knows exactly why Gabe hides very specific parts of himself the way he does.
They don't discuss it. Ever. Because these things don't even exist, okay? Except they do, and Gabe is constantly keeping whatever they are away from Bill, because he wants to protect him. William knows, he knows without the words and the conversation they'll never have because it's Gabe, and as many complicated and usually fucking awesome things there are about Gabe Saporta, some things just aren't.
And William hates it, he really does. Some days he just wants to yell and scream at Gabe just to make him see that he's not made of glass; he's not going to fucking shatter just because Gabe's scared or depressed or angry for no reason or even, you know, that other thing which despite his self proclaimed strength he can't quite bring himself to think and only really does because of that one time he managed to stay more sober than Gabe, and as they walked back to Gabe's apartment some discarded newspaper in a trash can proclaimed the occurrence of a teen suicide and Gabe stopped, squinted at it in the dimly lit street and remarked that he "tried to do that, once. But it didn't stick."
Gabe forgot, William never could.
And it's not like he's stupid. William can still rattle off pretty much every Midtown lyric from memory, and over the years the music might have changed but William's never seen Gabe write a lie yet.
He doesn't actually lie to William, which he supposes is some way of Gabe justifying it to himself. He doesn't lie, just hides, which William might argue was the same thing if he wasn't too scared to start this whole particular discussion with Gabe for the fear that it could end everything. Ever since Gabe scribbled that leave me alone on an old napkin and walked away, and William followed him, reaching up to put an arm around his shoulders only to have Gabe shake him off coldly, turning to give him a wordless (not allowed to speak, maybe not able to sing the way he did again) look, angry and dark and enough to make William take a step back; William learned that there were times with Gabe when you just didn't push.
So William's used to it, really. Used to parts of Gabe being locked off, both past and present thoughts kept secret and silent for reasons William doesn't understand but forces himself to accept, everyday. William doesn't believe in soul mates or perfect relationships, in two unique people being each other's puzzle pieces which fit together effortlessly. There's always overlap and differences and the need to just accept, and love for who the person is rather than who you want them to be. So William does.
"Hey," William speaks softly into the silence and Gabe doesn't jump. They're both creatures of habit so it's no surprise now whenever William follows Gabe downstairs after a little while.
"Hey." The smile on Gabe's face as he turns to look at William isn't strange, but William is kind of surprised when Gabe doesn't hurry to click out of the page he's on or shut down the laptop, just pulls another stool over until it's touching his own and he slides the laptop across the counter slightly so it's in a more central position to the two stools.
When William goes over and sits on the second stool after a couple of seconds Gabe just hands over the mug of coffee before leaning over to press his lips to William's temple.
"What are you doing?" he asks Gabe, resting both elbows on the counter and cupping his hands around the warm mug, tipping it to take a sip of coffee - Gabe's coffee, he smiles to himself at the thought.
"Tumbling," comes the reply, and William just looks at him until Gabe speaks again. "Okay, maybe it's not supposed to be used as a verb, but - whatever, okay. It's a thing." Gabe gestures at the screen in front of them and William finally lets himself look at it properly, now he's been given the instruction, or permission maybe. "It's a Tumblr, you know?" Gabe says, shrugging. "It's mine."
"Yours?" William questions automatically, because he twitters, sure, and sometimes writes on the Cobras' myspace page, but as a rule Gabe Saporta doesn't blog.
"Yeah." Gabe nods, and William isn't so surprised, really. He's seen Gabe write page after page after page in various notebooks, after all. What he's more surprised by is that he's being allowed to see it; right there in front of him, the web address and everything. He fights the urge to actually ask the question and loses.
"And I'm allowed to see?"
"Bilvy," Gabe frowns slightly, "why wouldn't you be allowed to see?"
"Because..." William fidgets then, suddenly uncomfortable just because Gabe's eyes on him, the older man having swivelled to look at William more head on, just have a kind of intensity to them, something William sees fairly often when Gabe's gaze is directed at him, like it's a case of looking into him rather than at, somehow. "I know you don't always want me to know... everything," he finishes cautiously, watches as understanding passes across Gabe's eyes - maybe even guilt, William thinks as the same feeling twists in his own stomach for a moment. It passes though, as a smile creeps onto Gabe's face, one corner of his lips slowly curving upward, but quickly followed by the other.
"This is hardly everything," he says, with maybe just a hint of apology in his words. "But you can see it," Gabe offers, almost bordering on shy as he shurgs in a show of nonchalance that they both know is fake (because most parts of himself, William reminds himself, Gabe never even thinks about trying to hide). "If you want." And even as Gabe speaks William feels the smile spread across his own face as he straight away shifts his hold on the mug to the handle, leaving one hand free to scroll down the page, taking in the different content of the ten posts on the page; pictures and snippets of text, sometimes just single words.
There's nothing to signify it is as being Gabe's unless you knew it was, though William does recognise the occasional quoted lyric of his own, one or two of Gabe's but more of the new Cobra have been working on, parts William knows he's proudest of, and more of other lyrics too. William recognises some of the photos posted as being Julian's, some random shots he's seen before on Gabe's laptop; random snapshots of life on tour or in the city Gabe loves so much. William sees parts of himself too, only parts where he and Gabe were messing around with his camera; his hands or his and Gabe's feet tangled where they were lying together in bed, and William's glad to see that Gabe respected his rule of 'nowhere on the internet anywhere or no sex ever again' for some of the other photos of other parts of him Gabe persuaded him were 'art' later. Those photos are accompanied by some quote from some beautiful poem which William doesn't deserve, surely could never match up to. Some longer chunks of writing in smaller font, William recognises as Gabe; as his thoughts and observations on life and people and society and how that shit works, or more often doesn't.
It's not explicit. There's no part where anything signed off with 'because I'm Gabe Saporta and I can say that' or something, but it's Gabe in a way that's both more and less clear than that. And William drinks it all in, every word, clicking and scrolling through every page while Gabe just lets him, just waits until William finally finishes and sits back a little, turning slightly so he's facing Gabe more.
After a pause, he just kind of breathes out a, "Wow." He pauses again to give Gabe a small smile before leaning forward to give him a short kiss on the lips, drawing back just enough to murmur a quiet "thank you", William giving him one more kiss before putting the mug (which, along with its contents, had gotten pretty cold by now) down on the counter and settling himself against Gabe's side. Gabe automatically wraps an arm around William's waist, his hand resting just above William's right hip, hold gentle but secure and William sighs contentedly as he rests his head slightly sideways on Gabe's shoulder, William just looking at the words left on the screen; his own right there at the top making a warm sense of happiness rise from somewhere deep in his chest. We were part of something ours, and ours alone. Anywhere was home.
It's not... everything. It's not what William so desperately wants; just to understand - or at least have the chance to understand what goes on in Gabe's head. It's not any of those conversations they'll probably never have and it's still just facets of Gabe painted in pixels on a page, but it's still there. It's still something, and it's still something of Gabe that no one in the world shares with him except William.
"I'm sorry," Gabe whispers and it takes William a second of two to register it before he straightens up a little, pulling back enough to look at Gabe's eyes without removing the contact of his hand, now slid up and across to settle at the nape of Gabe's neck, "if I can't always give you enough."
"Shut up," William says the words on instinct, and his tone is light, but there's enough of an edge to them to tell Gabe that he means it, at least in that small way. "You give me more than I ever let myself believe I deserved, every day."
The next day, after the two men spent the post-dawn morning hours in bed, William curled up against Gabe's side, William might have forgotten his exact words and kept hold of only the sentiment in his mind, but Gabe didn't forget them because he didn't want to.
