asoncalledgabriel | I'll find out what I'm looking for

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neil,
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I'll find out what I'm looking for

Something snapped in him after Pride.

He wasn't an abomination, he was gay, and that-- that was allowed. It wasn't illegal and maybe it wasn't condoned by everyone here, but fuck them.

So that was how he found himself at Styx, several drinks in and dancing with whoever the fuck he wanted to. That was how he found himself out in the alley afterward, on his knees, practically crammed into a wall as some guy he met inside fucked his mouth and he held on for the ride.

And afterward, when he was't sure he could handle going home to fall in bed alone, he found himself at Neil's door. He couldn't exactly remember how he'd gotten there, but he knocked, hopeful Neil would wake up long enough to let him in.

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"I'm sure," Neil whispers, and it feels real enough. He hates himself a little bit, for wanting this all as badly as he does, for feeling a little sick to know that Gabriel wanted someone else. How stupid, possessive.

He lays there a while, slowly starting to drift off. It's better, he thinks, than if they'd tried. It doesn't put anything on thin ice. And Gabriel will be sober in the morning, and they can just move on.

Gabriel drifts off after a while, exhausted and drunk and comfortable. He snuggles into Neil during the night, head down, tucked against him, breathing him in. He never bothered to put on the pajama pants Neil got out for him so he sleeps in his t-shirt and shorts. His fingers curl in Neil's shirt.

In the weak hours of the morning, after not nearly enough sleep, Neil wakes. He lays there, watching Gabriel sleep, for some time, until the first rosy glows of dawn turn into the soft, cottony light of dawn. He's glad that Gabriel seems peaceful in sleep.

Normally, in the mornings after they've done something, Gabriel makes excuses and leaves as fast as he can, once Neil wakes him up. Neil doesn't want to wake him up. He doesn't want Gabriel to make excuses.

Slowly, he extracts himself from bed and heads to the kitchen to start making breakfast.

Gabriel makes a soft sound when Neil moves, but all he does is sort of roll into the warm place that Neil leaves behind. He snuggles into his pillow. He doesn't really stir again until the smell of breakfast reaches him and his stomach rumbles. He hadn't eaten enough last night.

With another quiet whine he pushes himself up, groggy but at leas he doesn't have an awful hang over. He needs more water, though, and eventually he eases out of bed to shuffle into the kitchen.

At some point, Neil's lost his shirt. It wasn't intentional; he doesn't even really remember it happening. But when Gabriel steps into the kitchen, Neil suddenly becomes keenly aware of his reaction last night, and the fact that he's milling about his kitchen only half-dressed.

Like it's a crime or something. He pushes away the nerves of it.

"Hey." The bacon crackles in the pan. "How'd you sleep?"

"Not bad. You?"

He looks at Neil, he couldn't not look at him. He doesn't have a shirt on. Gabriel bites his lip and makes himself look somewhere else, at the bacon on the stove.

Neil stares at the bit of white at the pressure point of Gabriel's teeth touching his lip, and then looks away at the bacon. "Yeah. Yeah, I slept okay."

It hadn't been strange, exactly, to sleep next to Gabriel and not have them end up touching each other. They've done it before. Still, he feels like he crossed a line in here, and there's maybe no going back.

He grabs Gabriel a glass of water. "Bacon's almost ready. And there's eggs...? If you--if you want."

Gabriel moves further into the kitchen, and he stands too close to Neil as he accepts the glass of water. "That all sounds really good," he murmurs. "Thanks, mate."

"Yeah." Neil's voice sounds funny to his own ears, distant and vague. He's trying to look at Gabriel's whole face, not just the parts of it--his mouth, his chin, all these places he's kissed and that somehow feel forbidden right now until they acknowledge that they're not acknowledging what happened last night.

"Any time," he finally says, and slowly turns back toward the stove. "You know that."

Gabriel stayed close even as he drank some water - he knew he needed it. But eventually he sat the near-empty glass aside and he stayed right where he was.

"I'm sorry I just... showed up a drunk mess at your door," he murmured.

"It's fine," Neil says, voice soft but steady. "I'm glad you felt you could come here. You're welcome whenever you want."

He smiles at him, and hopes it's steady. "Not that I ever had Patricia over in the first place, but at least you don't have to worry about interrupting anything now."

"I wanted to come here," he murmurs. Maybe he'd been out sowing wild oats or whatever, but he'd wanted to come here. Even drunk, he'd thought of Neil.

"And I didn't mean--" He'd been rude, maybe, showing up like he did. He knows Neil had been upset.

Neil pulls the bacon off the pan, leaving it on a paper towel. He shuts off the burner, but doesn't move. His eyes cut to Gabriel, soft and curious. Didn't mean what? In the light of morning, Neil's upset with himself, with how he acted, with the curls of jealousy that made him push and prod when Gabriel was drunk.

He still can't tell if he remembers, though. If he remembers Neil asking if they're more than friends, or Neil saying he wanted to have sex. So he just watches him for a moment.

"I meant it," he says quietly after Neil pulls away. "It hurt when I tried." He didn't say: the idea of trying again scared him witless, made his stomach knot in memory of the panic after, and of what Connor said to him.

"And I didn't want to be drunk for-- for that." He'd been sort of drunk when he managed with a girl, the first and only time.

Neil's face flames with heat. He scuffs his foot against the floor a couple times, trying to find a face to wear, a voice to use, anything that gets them through this moment.

Finally, he just says, "We don't have to. I mean--you don't have to want to, with...with anybody. So it's. We can just pretend like that didn't happen, if you want."

An easy smile slides on, and Neil tips it toward Gabriel, hoping it meets his eyes. "Come on, let's just have breakfast."

"I wouldn't be talking about it if I wanted to pretend it didn't happen," he mumbled, wondering if he should just shut up. Wondering if that's what Neil wants to do - to just forget it. Gabriel suddenly feels helpless and uncertain again.

"Yeah, sure." He turned to finish the last bit of his water and got a plate.

Gabriel turns away, and Neil takes a second to draw in a silent, shuddering breath. His mind is conjuring arguments for a wealth of things--shooting down Gabriel's apologies, instilling his own, pointing out that Neil was the one who asked for it so of course they'd do it to him first and they'd never have to do anything to Gabriel--

God. What's he thinking?

He grabs himself a plate, body brushing against Gabriel's just a little in the process.

Gabriel feels a little dizzy for a second when Neil brushes against him and he realizes he has no idea how to read this anymore. He moves a little, not far, and he just sort of looks at Neil, thoroughly uncertain and hopeful.

"It-- everything looks good. Thanks, Neil."

"Of course," Neil says. The shift away aches in him somehow, and Neil could curse himself. Even if Gabriel wants to do more with him, there's an established pattern to this by now. Gabriel's step back isn't running away, but Neil doesn't quite dare pursue it.

So he just stands there, plate set down on the counter, eyes flitting over the other boy's face. They're friends, of course--but is that it?

Gabriel finally tries to summon words. He looks at Neil, eyebrows drawn together. "I don't know what you want," he says helplessly. "I want to."

"I don't want to lose you as a friend," Neil says, quietly honest. He watches Gabriel's face. "I don't want to make you feel like you have to want to do it, just because I...I've thought about it."

The kitchen is quiet around them without the sizzle of bacon. Neil's voice is very small. "I want you to want to come here when you want to do things with people. Not just...just anybody, right then."

"You won't,' he answers, wondering if he's done something that would make Neil think it anything is up in the air.

And there's part of him that wants to protest, because it isn't that he hadn't wanted the guy he sucked off. It's just that he'd also been convenient. He wants to do all the things he's never felt free to do before. But maybe that's not the thing to say right now. Because he wants Neil, too.

"I could-- yeah, I could do that."

Neil ducks his head down and sniffles a little bit, because he could almost see that, the flicker of argument and then the soft agreement. It doesn't feel like a compromise, even. Just like he's snatched some of the light away, and is left with nothing but Gabriel looking a little dimmer, more subdued.

Slowly, he steps in closer, and leans in to kiss Gabriel. It feels more fragile than that very first one, months old now.

As soon as Neil kissed him, Gabriel wrapped an arm around him and pulled him closer, his other hand holding Neil's cheek. He kissed him back, trying to convey what he couldn't in words. He's here because he wants to be. He's here because Neil means something to him.

He knows he has a lot of shit to figure out, but that feels certain.

To be kissed like that, to feel something settle in his chest, startles Neil for a second. They've been kissing for months, and it still tends to be him who kisses Gabriel and not the other way around. But the way they meet, now, means something. It has to.

His mouth moves against the kiss, without his thought involved. "We could wait on breakfast?"

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