full moons & minor keys (7/7)

[behindthec]

 

Title: Full Moons and Minor Keys (7/7)

Author: lolab

Pairing: William Beckett/Gabe Saporta

Rating: R. ish.

Summary: I’ve always thought William could convert an asexual, a priest, even a motorcycle dyke; and being nothing so extreme myself, I sure as fuck had no hope.

Disclaimer: The keyword in fan fiction is FICTION. Don’t own Bilvy or Gabanti; I respect them very much; just can't help seeing the world through slashy subtext-tinted glasses, and once a story starts writing itself in my head, I have to get it out.

Warnings: BOYSECKZ (warning? more like incentive), plenty of creative swearing, Gabe being all dirty and Gabe-like, flagrant abuse of the '70s handkerchief code, shameless disregard for reality (i.e. girlfriends, etc.).

Notes: I totally had my first threesome last night, and it was really fun, so I’m all loopy but let’s see if I can remember my dedications. ;) For mirrorscrack, for porn and the most awesome use of Bill’s scarves EVER. For my LJ wife, conquer_minds, for the most gorgeously indulgent elevator sex ever written (Esslin FTW!!!!! :D). And for noteto__self, for the entirely delicious car sex, mmmmmm. :D And as always, for The Clandestine Collective, who make me smile every day and never cease to amaze me with their talent and awesomeness (and jokes about the Fic Which Must Not Be Named). GET READY FOR US, FANDOM. :)

 

I’ve had a fantastic time with this story and I’ve met some absolutely wonderful new friends and along the way. Thank you to everyone who has commented and written me porn and all that good stuff. You guys rock.

 

There just might be a tiny epilogue coming at some point. ;)

 

(Oh yeah: and I’m about thirty pages into the sequel.)

 

xposted to hell and back.

 

Comments = happiness. I also accept hand jobs cookies in place of feedback. <3

Previous Chapters:

- Chapter 1 and Chapter 1b

- Chapter 2

- Chapter 3

- Chapter 4

- Chapter 5

- Chapter 6

7.

 

I’ll bring the fire if you bring the water...

- TAI

 

 

 

I’d already had three people come up and ask me who died, and I’d only been at the tour kickoff bash for twenty minutes.

 

Pete became oddly omniscient when I showed up ten minutes early and asked if William was coming. He said he didn’t know, which was expressed in a strong “I do know and he’s not but I’m trying to give you hope” kind of way.

 

If I had to guess, I’d say I probably looked like Gizmo at bath time.

 

I’d texted Bill after he took off the week before and told him to tell me when he got home. My phone beeped around noon, after I’d fallen back into a harsh, fitful burst of sleep:

 

“i'm home.”

 

Wow. Deep.

 

I fought frustration enough to write “thank you” and didn’t expect another word.

 

Two hours later, I got eight of them:

 

“it physically hurts how much i miss you.”

 

When I could breathe again, I typed out “ditto” and couldn’t bring myself to say anything else until this morning, when I wrote “will i see u 2nite?” and never got an answer.

 

And that was my week.

 

Well, that, and a small country’s supply of tequila.

 

So many times I’d been tempted as hell to call up Sisky to tell me what was going on, because if anyone would know, he would.

 

But I didn’t, because I still wasn’t even sure I was ready to hear it from William himself.

 

He’d tell me when he was ready. That was William; stubborn to the core and then some. You could never rush him, never force anything out of him, or he’d shut you out faster than it takes a fangirl to whip out a camera.

 

...Or, he’d never tell me and every future encounter between us for the rest of our intertwined lives would be awkward and strained and more pitiful than a lost kitten caught in the rain in winter.

 

The very fact that I was comparing the potential future of our relationship to a cold, wet, abandoned animal was pretty much indicative of the state I’d been in all week.

 

Of all the photographs in my apartment, I felt it appropriate to keep only one of William and me visibly accessible. There it sat, framed atop the piano, a shot from the “Snakes” video set. I was behind him, chin resting on his shoulder, arms circled about his waist. One of his hands entwined idly with mine, like he didn’t even realize he was doing it, and the other held a piece of paper – probably lyrics or blocking notes – at which both of us were staring, oblivious to the little oasis of intimacy our bodies had formed. You couldn’t tell just from glancing, but if you really looked at it you could see the hint of a smile on Bill’s lips. I didn’t even know who took the picture or how long I’d had it, only that this last week I’d set my eyes on it so incessantly it was pretty much burned into my retinas by now.

 

After half an hour or so of skulking in a corner of Pete’s living room (right by another perfectly useless end table, which I thought I fit with pretty well right about then), I spotted Mike slip through the front door, followed by Chizz, Butcher, Sisky... and Sisky closing the door behind them.

 

It was enough. Enough for what, I’m not sure, but definitely enough to make me grab my beer and storm upstairs like a six-year-old and head for the balcony off one end of the hallway. It was a beautiful and flawless place, built for peace of mind and practically dripping with it, overlooking the garden and half the city, and was right now my only hope of not losing it completely.

 

I probably should’ve been more annoyed to find someone there, but as Brendon spun around, all smiling eyes and snazzy pinstripes and dark chocolate hair, I couldn’t help but smile.

 

He grinned back, taking me in before rolling his eyes. “We’re sad, man.”

 

“I know.”

 

I claimed a spot beside him, leaning out over the railing. “Ryan’s an idiot,” I said simply.

 

“So’s Bill. Though at least he’s not engaged.”

 

I nearly choked on my beer, meeting his eye. “Ryan’s engaged?!”

 

“As of about two hours ago.”

 

“Christ! Seriously?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Fuck, man!”

 

“Yeah.”

 

We looked at each other and somehow, together, triggered a completely inappropriate flow of laughter.

 

“We need to get married, Gabe,” he informed me when we’d settled down, leaning with his back to the railing until a strip of skin appeared where his shirt rode up an inch, and it felt wonderful and heartbreaking to let myself notice to the point of distraction.

 

“What, to each other?”

 

“Yeah. We’ll have utterly gorgeous children, of course, and we’ll be the first music-industry couple not to end in divorce or suicide, and Bill and Ry’ll be sinfully jealous.”

 

I laughed. “Very mature, B.”

 

Without even a blink of forethought, he’d effected his most decadent puppy-dog pout. “Are you turning down my proposal?”

 

I met those huge eyes, momentarily wishing I could get lost in them. “Bren, in another universe, I’d marry you in a New York minute, I swear to god.”

 

His pout faded, eyes darkly bright and face sober. “Serious?”

 

I smiled; even went so far as to brush a finger over the back of his hand. “You bet. It’s no wonder Alex has the world’s biggest crush on you.”

 

Oh shit. I was going to be murdered in my sleep.

 

Brendon’s eyes about doubled in size, completely ruling his face. “What?”

 

“Nothing!” I laughed, burying my face in my hands. “I didn’t say that!”

 

“Dude!”

 

“No!”

 

“Alex has a crush on me?”

 

“Ughhh, yes, don’t you dare tell him I – ”

 

“Alex Suarez?”

 

“Do you know another?”

 

“Uh, every guy in every emo band ever is named Alex. But seriously?”

 

I sighed, unable to kill the smile. “Yes. Since forever. I mean, forever. Like, back when you were jailbait. Kind of pervy, really.”

 

He was beaming. “That’s... kind of awesome. I mean... shit, he’s adorable. And funny! And – ”

 

“Yeah, well, fantastic. Now you’ll go marry him and I’ll have no one to commiserate with. Bitch.”

 

“Oh, Gaaabe,” he cooed, “I’ll always be your wife in spirit.”

 

I had to laugh, I mean, I had to; B just has that effect on the human race. He was so unavoidably fucking special. In every sense of the word.

 

“Good,” I smiled. “Go on then, go find Alex, ravish him in front of Ryan, or... something equally disgusting.”

 

He bit his lip as it curled upward. “How ‘bout a kiss for luck?”

 

“Like you need it, slut,” I smirked, leaning forward until our mouths met.

 

I let it last a couple seconds longer than I should’ve, maybe, because he was warm and smelled like peaches and nothing like William, and it made me forget.

 

When it ended and our eyes opened, a tall blur of red, black, and skin had been planted in my peripheral vision, so bright and so invasive and so fucking present that I nearly got whiplash turning my head.

 

William. Frozen, pale, and motionless as a corpse. Hair utterly perfect, no doubt having been fussed over for the better part of an hour, and he was wearing that soft, clingy dark red top I’d always told him I loved every time I saw him in it.

 

A quiet, breathy “Fuck” from Brendon cut the silence and whatever else hung in the air. But William didn’t react, only stared at me, blank.

 

Tearful would’ve been better than blank. Rage would’ve been better than blank.

 

Blank was fucking dangerous.

 

[A/N: I am so tempted to end the chapter here. So tempted. :P]

 

But blank prevailed, even as he turned around and hurried back down the hall, not remotely close to looking back, not once. Some part of my paused brain kicked back into gear, blurred as it half registered the sound of Brendon’s voice – “Dude, go after him!” – and the jarring feel of his hand on my back, pushing me toward the hall. I couldn’t remember walking but somehow I was, and then my voice returned and I was calling his name, my eyes catching flashes of him as he’d disappear down another hallway. I finally heard the slam of a door, and, reaching it, pressed my whole body into it, arms spread like I was trying to vanish through it, Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters style.

 

I tried the handle – locked, of course, and with every right.

 

“William. Please. Let me in.”

 

Yeah. Convincing. Note to self: never consider side career in hostage negotiations.

 

“Please,” I begged. “Just – Bill. Please. Fuck... please, Becks.”

 

Silence. How promising.

 

I let myself slink down to the floor, leaning against the doorframe, my surrender triggering the threat of tears, and fuck, he’d never seen me cry and I didn’t want him to but I was and shit, because I never cried but when I did I was lost.

 

“Please... baby, come on. Please, sweetheart, just let me...” And I was mumbling nonsense now and pushing my rights; god knows I never called him “baby” or “sweetheart” (though I would, forever, if he’d let me), but I was desperate.

 

“Look, it was nothing – it was just a kiss for luck, he... oh, wow, that sounds like the worst line ever. Fuck.” I even laughed then, because it was just that bad. “Please,” I offered, vowing it as my last. I knew I couldn’t push him. But fuck, I had to try.

 

It’s amazing how circumstances can completely mindfuck your perceptions: if asked at any other time what the most beautiful sound in the world was, I’d have said his voice, or his laugh, or that hitch of breath he lets escape right before he comes. But right now, when I heard that lock click, it was the most incredible thing I could ever remember meeting my ears.

 

I scrambled to my feet, took a shaky breath, swiped carelessly at my eyes, and turned the handle.

 

The room was empty.

 

I turned around, once, twice. “...Bill?”

 

A sniffle stole my attention, and I spun around. He was standing in the doorway of an attached bathroom, looking like I’d never known he was capable of looking. Beautiful as ever, but broken. Completely. I’d always thought he looked a little broken inside no matter what... but this. This. Never.

 

You did this, the voice in my head screamed.

 

I could’ve said a million things, but he silenced them all.

 

“You lied,” he said softly. “Just like him.”

 

“What? No – no, fuck, no – ”

 

“No!” Voice stronger now, stronger than mine even, all blankness gone. “I can’t get hurt again, I can’t! And I fucking won’t!”

 

He slammed the bathroom door and made a furious beeline for the door I’d come through but I closed in on him, grabbing his arm and pulling him around. He jerked away in a genuinely surprising display of strength, but I caught him again, both arms this time and held him against the wall and I knew I shouldn’t but I wasn’t going to lose him, not tonight, not ever again and sure as fuck not like this.

 

I expected him to fight me off, maybe even hit me, but he just went limp, a total surrender, and let a downfall of tears stream out. I let go of him then, watching, just watching, because I couldn’t imagine what the hell else to do.

 

“Tell me,” I finally said. “Who did this to you? Who the fuck hurt you?”

 

But he was gone, lost, just crying and shaking his head and pulling away any time and anywhere I tried to touch him, but I did, finally, just holding his arms and whispering nothingness in Spanish.

 

“You won’t get hurt,” I said at last, desperate just to catch his eye. “Bill? Okay? I’m not going to hurt you. Ever. I love you.”

 

“You don’t think he said that to me?!” He was across the room now, eyes flashing wild but at least they were on mine. “He said it every fucking night, Gabe, for six months, till the night I found him on his knees behind the venue, sucking off some sixteen-year-old kid with a fucking Sharpie still in his hand!”

 

Christ.

 

Just. Fuck.

 

“Who?” I choked.

 

“You fucking know who!”

 

Yeah... I guess I did.

 

“Tom,” I whispered.

 

As the name hit the air, confirming itself, he crumbled to the floor, hunched against the foot of the bed, all tears and trembling, and when I sat beside him I said nothing, because nothing I could say was needed now.

 

He dissolved, though – full-body sobs down to sporadic sniffles, and finally a deep breath that signaled a return to his faculties, or at least a start.

 

“We... just happened, out of nowhere,” he said, staring at the floor. “Since the day we met, there was just this... fire between us whenever we were in a room together. And then one night we’re alone, really alone for the first time and he’s playing his acoustic for me and the next thing I know we’re in his bed and I’m feeling things I’ve never felt my whole fucking life.”

 

My eyes dropped. This was harder to hear than I’d thought it would be. William’s openness, when it did emerge, was so breathtakingly, heart-stoppingly honest, almost to an unbearable degree.

 

But that’s just because I wasn’t as strong as he was.

 

“He... Tom and I... we were like this volcano – an eruption that just turns to hell and chaos. He told me he loved me that first night, and I said it back, because... fuck, I did. And for six months he was my universe. It’s like... it was so good it almost had to end bad, you know?”

 

I tried to nod. My voice was only a ghost, a lost memory.

 

He swallowed, voice dropping. “I found out later he’d developed a habit of it – random fans after shows – only if they were high or wasted, though, so they wouldn’t remember, y’know. Sick as fuck, but it didn’t stop him from kissing me goodnight and telling me I was his everything and making love to me like I was a fucking deity to him, every fucking night.”

 

It wasn’t until now I realized I was still crying. Not intentionally, or even consciously. But there they were, tears making little wet circles on my pants.

 

“After that night I asked him to leave the band, and he said he would.”

 

I swallowed. “Did anyone else know?”

 

“Just Sisky. And his brother, afterwards. Jason and I have always had this... weird, amazing ability to comfort each other, since we were kids, like really little. After it happened, Sisky called him and told him and I just showed up at his apartment. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. We spent all weekend in bed, no clothes, no words... no pain.”

 

A part of me crumbled; I’d known Bill then. I’d known him long before then. I’d been his friend, too. He could’ve spent the weekend (hell, the rest of his life) in my bed. I wouldn’t have said a damn word either.

 

“I – I couldn’t go to you,” he stammered, reading my mind as always. “I knew how you felt about me, and I... I kind of had feelings for you too. It would’ve been too much baggage. We would’ve started an us, and it wasn’t the time. It would’ve failed. I’m sorry.”

 

...Oh.

 

“What – what you said,” he whispered, “that night in the hotel – that I made you beautiful. He. Tommy. He’d say that to me. All the time.”

 

So much I could’ve said then, and all that came out was, “Oh my god, ‘Everything We Had,’ is that – ”

 

He nodded. “Not about Christine.”

 

“...Does Tom know?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

He was silent for a long time, and thus so was the room, because what could I possibly say?

 

He took a tentative breath. “When I saw you with Brendon... I. I know, it didn’t mean anything. I just. It brought back so many – it just reminded me so much of that night, when I...”

 

“Bill...” I choked, but I couldn’t finish.

 

He fidgeted nervously with the hem of his shirt. “The way you and I started... and everything that’s happened... so much of it was the same. And I was watching myself falling, knowing there was nothing I could do, but I was so fucking terrified, and I tried so hard to stop it but it was too late.”

 

...Was I hearing things wrong, or...

 

I studied his face, my heart pounding, loud as the silence.

 

“Um. When you said falling, you meant...”

 

He looked up, face as terrified as he’d just claimed. “In love.”

 

Right. Yeah. Okay.

 

When had my mouth acquired the climate of the Sahara?

 

“You – ” Yeah. That. “You’re – ”

 

He blinked, cheeks flushed and breath short, and swallowed.

 

“I’m in love with you.” His voice was breaking, but our gazes never did. “Always have been. Maybe since the day I met you. Maybe before.”

 

In fiction, that would’ve been the moment where we kissed and took off into the sunset, or at least started fucking like rabbits in Pete’s guest room.

 

Unfortunately, reality was calling, and as I reached for his hand, he pulled it away.

 

“Gabe, I’m scared.”

 

“Fuck, William, I’m scared too! I’m scared you’re gonna let your fear win, and just keep running from me, and – ”

 

“I’m not running, I just --!” Even as he said it, he was on his feet, pacing the room. “I can’t get hurt again, I fucking can’t!”

 

“Dude – I’m not Tom.”

 

Somehow it halted him, stole his attention, gave it to me.

 

“I – fuck, Bill, I – I’d fucking die before I ever hurt you! In twenty-eight years I’ve never felt like this about anyone, you don’t think that scares the shit out of me?”

 

“Gabe, that doesn’t change – ”

 

“No, it doesn’t change what he did. The damage is done. I know. But – fuck.” I ran a hand through my hair, shook my head, drowning in last resorts, but the only thing swimming in my mind was a string of muddled metaphors.”

 

“You know, man,” I finally sighed. “You’re just like your music.”

 

He blinked. “What?”

 

“Minor keys, dark, cold, but, y’know... safe... because if you cling to the darkness, the light’ll never burn you. And even the brighter songs, there’s always a line or a bridge that falls back, like you can’t let go of it – like you’re always just that half-step away from letting yourself be happy.”

 

He blinked again, and I started to wonder if I’d just delivered the world’s most ridiculous impromptu (read: out of my ass) speech... until he whispered:

 

“You’re right.”

 

I. What?

 

“I – really?”

 

Way to exude confidence, Saporta.

 

The tiniest ghost of a smile touched his lips. “Mike bitches about it too when we write.”

 

I almost smiled back, but I couldn’t be sure. My mind was a blur. A kaleidoscope on crack.

 

He took a step forward. “I don’t want to run anymore. I don’t want to cling to what’s safe.”

 

I gulped as he continued to inch forward, only three steps, two, from reach.

 

I almost couldn’t ask.

 

“What... do you want?”

 

No hesitation, not even fear: “You. Only you. Always.”

 

And he kissed me.

 

He kissed me for ten straight minutes, stopping only intermittently to say “I love you” because he could, and each time I said it back, I meant it more than the time before.

 

Some miracle allowed us to slip downstairs virtually unnoticed, creep outside and head back to his hotel for some seven odd hours before he had to be on a tour bus. And as we slunk through the crowd, I spotted Brendon in a corner of the room per his usual – only he was glowing, talking animatedly with his hands and stopping every so often to laugh, and when we rounded a corner, the angle revealed Alex in front of him, blushing so hard he may as well have been sunburned, and looking happier than I’d seen him all these years.

 

On our way to the hotel my eyes wandered out the car window up into the black sky, but I couldn’t see the moon anywhere.

 

It made sense, somehow. We didn’t need any of it anymore – not excuses, not full moons. Not alcohol or insomnia or stage fright.

 

The stars were better off by themselves, anyway – nothing to weigh them down, hold them back.

 

They were free.

 

 

 

[FIN. minus epilogue.]

Comments

[lolab.livejournal.com]

the sequel is going to break your heart. hence, no details. ;)

YAY DRUNK!!!!! i got drunk last night, and wheeeeeeeee, threesome!!! :D