asoncalledgabriel | Love is heavy and light, bright and dark [Dec 8th]

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Love is heavy and light, bright and dark [Dec 8th]

It's been weeks. Gabriel gave up trying to even text Anthony about a week ago and instead threw himself into final rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet. He's tried not to complain to Neil too much about the sudden absence, mostly because he feels stupid for being so worked up about it in the first place. Especially when Neil mentions that Guy's been in a rough patch.

Of course, Anthony must have been trying to take care of his friend. But-- couldn't he stand to answer a text or a call?

He tries to put it out of his mind come opening night. A few hours before the curtain went up, he'd sent Anthony an offhand text.

R&J tonight, curtain up at 7pm.

After that, he leaves his phone on silent and in his bag as they go through final rehearsals and costume adjustments.

For the most part, characters like Mercutio stay in the same costume with minor changes through the show so the audience doesn't lost track of who is who. Gabriel makes his entrance looking like a fashionable young noble of the period, a little more undone than Romeo's other compatriots - a little more fast and loose, as the character is meant to be. He delivers the Queen Mab speech with a dreamer's mania, and his death is impassioned and hopeless all at once.

After his last scene on stage, Gabriel hangs out of sight in the wings, sneaking looks at the audience when he can. The theater is dark, he can't see very far into it, and he doesn't know why he's bothering to look, anyway. Neil told him he wouldn't be able to make opening night and that he plans to come tomorrow or during the closing weekend. He disappears into the dressing room to take off the stage make up caked on his face. He'll still have to go out bow for the curtain call, but he doesn't need contouring or darkened eyebrows for that.

Gabriel reappears for the curtain call and the full cast bow on stage, all bright smiles and exaggerated gestures. He can hear the announcement inviting the audience to mingle with cast members out in the atrium, where light refreshments are being served by one of the student groups.

All he wants to do is change out of his costume and disappear, but Romeo hooks him around the shoulders and hauls him out to the atrium to socialize.

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The entire time that he changes back into his street clothes, Gabriel thinks he's been foolish. Too quick to accept the invitation, too desperate to be close again that he'll tolerate being ghosted for weeks. He looks at himself in the mirror to make sure there aren't any lingering streaks of make up.

You're beautiful, a voice that sounds terribly like Anthony's whispers in his head. He shakes it off and pulls out his cigarettes as he heads out of the backstage area. He waves off a few people when he hears calls to join them at a bar. Not tonight.

It isn't hard to find Anthony outside; there are a handful of people smoking and almost none of them are standing together.

"I didn't think you'd come," he confesses when he's close enough. He saves himself from looking at Anthony's face by taking a moment to light his cigarette.

While Gabriel is lighting his cigarette, Anthony allows his gaze to linger on him. The young man is a little tousled after his performance, sweat from the stage lights still clinging to him, clothes slightly rumpled. A little makeup remains smudged awkwardly around one eye.

And yet, Anthony wonders if he couldn’t look at Gabriel forever, just like this.

But in a moment he is looking into the distance again. He smiles dryly. “You had told me so much about it. I thought I might as well see the end result."

"Is that it?" he challenges softly after breathing out a sigh of smoke.

He thinks of the night they spent together after the dinner he'd gotten dressed up for. He remembers watching in real time as Anthony tried to hide something real and passionate behind his regular cool and collected calm.

Gabriel looks down for a moment, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. Maybe he should be grateful for this, whatever it is.

"I'm glad you did," he says at last. There's something else sitting just on the tip of his tongue, but it feels like too much exposure to say it out loud. He'd missed Anthony.

“How could I resist when you so eloquently articulate the necessity of Mercurtio’s role in the plot?” Anthony shoots back without missing a beat, a curve of a smile on his lips. He is purposefully avoiding the point Gabriel is trying to make, but that is something Anthony excels at.

Gabriel’s next comment makes Anthony’s chest tight. He doesn’t trust himself to speak for a moment. Instead, he finishes his cigarette.

“How about that drink, then?"

Gabriel feels the flash of his temper again: the irrational urge t do something or say something sharp that might wipe that smile from Anthony's face. Instead, he takes a long drag and gives a faint nod of his head.

"Yeah," he says to the drink. He bloody well needs one at this rate. "Wherever you like."

If Anthony plans on buying, Gabriel can at least let him choose the bar.

Anthony has every intention of buying the drinks. He likes being the one who buys, likes taking Gabriel places the boy wouldn’t be able to afford on his own. He doesn’t like to admit as much—it sound so classist, so paternalistic—but it’s true, all the same.

He flicks away his cigarette and puts his hands in his pockets as he leads the way towards an elegant little bar not very far away from Barton’s campus.

Gabriel feels mildly under-dressed when they walk in, but he decides not to care. He isn't the only college student there, he can see that at least. He knows that he's stewing and he tries to clear it out of his head, knowing well it's not one of the finer points of his personality. It's the first time he's seen Anthony in weeks, and he doesn't want to spend the night ready to spout off.

He orders his drink and looks at Anthony like he's trying to read something.

Anthony can feel the tension rippling off Gabriel—and he can guess at its source—but he ignores it. He orders a drink and offers Gabriel a flickered of a smile.

“Do you feel satisfied with how things went tonight?” he asks. Anthony is really very good at ignoring tension when he sets his mind to it.

"Don't be an ass," he says quietly as he looks down at the bar. Anthony's acting like the tension isn't there, and Gabriel can't stand it. His mother did the same fucking thing, as if everything could be smoothed over if it was just buried deep enough.

When their drinks arrive, he looks up, meeting Anthony's gaze.

"You could've said something. I would've understood."

For all that he's frustrated, his voice comes out calm and even. He wonders if he sounds foolish, or childish. Either would be too much to bear, but if he remains silent he knows it will fester in him like so many other things. Better to have it out.

Anthony lifts a brow. He had seem Gabriel’s anger and frustration ripple beneath the surface before, and he has a sense of the emotion that the boy hides behind his easygoing nature. But still he lets so much wash over him without comment, and Anthony had let himself be convinced, despite the tension, that he would do the same for the last few weeks.

He does feel guilty about disappearing; that is, in large part, why he came tonight. But some part of him rebels against the idea that he owes this boy an explanation for his movements. Why? Because they have shared a bed half a dozen times?

“I should not have forgotten our appointment,” he says, because it is easier to apologize for failing to do something he had explicitly promised—that is only polite—than it is to acknowledge that Gabriel deserved some communication about what was happening, some tiny part of his life or his heart, after the time they had spent together.

Something washes over him then, and he can't put a name on what it is, but it feels like a sort of numbness all the way out to his fingertips. Gabriel nods a bit to acknowledge the-- he doesn't know. It isn't even an apology, not really.

Maybe he's being ridiculous. But he doesn't think he imagined the-- the what? The feeling between them. He can't have imagined what he saw and felt during their late-night conversations, when he'd seen Anthony more bare and vulnerable than ever. Don't do that, he'd said when Anthony tried to brush him off. Maybe this entire thing has been more one-sided than he thought, and he hates the creeping threat of humiliation.

He takes a fortifying drink from his glass.

"It's alright," he says, affecting his best impression Anthony's cool and distant tone. "Sorry to have made a thing of it."

Edited 2018-12-13 03:17 (UTC)

Anthony feels something in his chest twist. It shouldn’t bother him, the way Gabriel says it’s all right with an affectation of disinterest. But Anthony doesn’t like to see him hide his hurt, and hates to see him become something distant and detached, so different from the Gabriel he usually sees. Just sitting beside the boy makes him long for the unexpected ease of those late nights, where they lie in bed together, somehow more themselves than they ever are anywhere else.

God, how vey foolish he has let himself become.

His expression remains placid, but he shakes his head and waves away the apology. “No, you are quite right. I should have said something.” Anthony lets himself believe that he is still talking about their aborted plan to get drinks together, and not the way he had suddenly abandoned this something that had begun to grow between them.

"Stop," he breathes, and he hates that it sounds like a plea. "Christ, just stop. Should have - that's the barest attempt at a bloody apology I've heard."

Christ, as soon as it's out of his mouth he wants it back. He could just be agreeable. He could just say it's alright and try to make that true, couldn't he? He could sit here and drink and be pleasant and talk about the play as if he hadn't thought Anthony might have disappeared, or written him off.

"It's clear enough where I stand if I don't warrant a word from you in weeks, or a real apology when you do decide to resurface. And it's fine - I ought not have thought more."

A sort of icy anger slips down Anthony’s spine at Gabriel’s returning volley. He narrows his eyes slightly and sips his drink. Anthony Blunt does not like to be made to feel like he owes something to other people: certainly not time, or attention, or what one might call emotional availability. He will concede that he has been impolite, but that is not a reflection of what they think of one another, for goodness sake.

That anger, unfair as it may be, helps him keep his walls in place, as much as he longs for closeness. “And where is it that you think things stand?” he asks with the same unerring mildness.

He's stepped in it now. Gabriel takes a breath, and another, and he tries to hold onto-- something. Gabriel swears he can feel the chill rolling off Anthony. This isn't what he wants. He doesn't want to start a fight here - he wants to be somewhere quiet and alone, and far, far closer than they are right now. He wants his fingers curled around Anthony's tie and hear anything but that mild tone of voice.

His heart is pounding and he can't tell if it's fear or anxiety or something else now. It's been ages since he felt on the verge of an attack like this.

"Either I'm a distraction that you'd like to pick up and put down at will," he pauses and takes a drink because Christ, he needs something to get through this. "Or you think more of me than that and we're being miserable at each other in defense of our pride."

Gabriel is willing to admit that's what he's doing at least. It's taken him this long to realize that's where his bite is coming from. And if that isn't it for Anthony, if it's the former... He isn't sure what he'll do. But it will be humiliating to have been so wrong regardless.

If Gabriel had insisted that he feels something special between them, if he had lingered on his hurt, or accused Anthony of some slight, things might have gone very differently. Anthony would have built his walls higher, he would have offered a cool goodbye, and paid for their drinks, and left this silly dalliance behind. He would have washed his hands of the whole thing and compartmentalized off his disappointment, as he has done before.

But that isn’t what happens. As Gabriel answers, voice impressively steady. Anthony turns to stare at the wall behind the bar and sips his drink. Possibly one of the most maddening and beautiful things about Gabriel is his ability to spot artifice and his willingness to call it out. Anthony respects him for that, damn it, and that makes it significantly more difficult to hold onto his disdain.

The silence lingers so long that one might fairly assume that Anthony does not intend to say anything at all. Then, quietly, almost gently, he answers, “I do not wish to pick you up and put you down like a plaything.”

Do not. Anthony doesn’t want things to end between them; he does not want to speak of this in the past tense.

The silence builds as powerfully as any crescendo, and the thought that it might not end makes Gabriel feel dizzy for a moment. He tries to ignore the tightness in his chest, his heart pounding. He tries to keep his breathing even, steady.

He waits for Anthony to just leave, or to say something cutting and then leave, but none of that happens. What he does say makes Gabriel look at him, finally.

"Then don't," he says just as quietly, impressed that he can make his voice work at all. "Please."

God, but he wants to kiss him. Gabriel turns his body more toward Anthony, closes the distance between them with a shift of his weight, far less closed off than he'd been just a moment ago.

Something breaks when Gabriel shifts fractionally closer. The tension doesn’t disappear, but Anthony can feel it begin to evaporate. He looks at Gabriel again, studies him softly, and reaches out to brush the backs of his fingers on Gabriel’s cheek. “I have not."

Then he turns back to his drink. God, he is relieved; it is the most helpless, absurd feeling.

They haven't really touched in public before, not quite like this, anyway. He thinks, briefly, of the alley the night they first fell into bed together. This is not an alley, and Gabriel turns his head slightly into the touch before it's gone.

Some part of him wants to dissolve into a puddle of relief. The desperate anxiety that's been twisting up inside him since he saw Anthony in the atrium is shivering apart. He doesn't think he's really shaking, at least. Gabriel sips his drink, lets himself actually enjoy the taste this time.

Gabriel finds himself staring at the bar top when he asks, "Do you have other plans tonight?"

No, the tension isn’t entirely gone, but it will be soon. With a single question, Gabriel has promised as much. Soon they will be alone, and the rest of it won’t matter quite so much. They are both at their best when they are alone together and the world melts away.

He lets himself smile just for a moment. “No, I don’t."

This is a script they've rehearsed before. A small smile ticks his mouth because it feels so easy to fall back into it. The tension isn't gone, maybe it will take more working out than simply acknowledging where they stand, but-- there is possibility, now, and familiarity. He knows what to do, he knows how this conversation goes.

"I've decent gin now," he says lightly, conversational save for the slightly breathless quality to his voice. He's still recovering from what just happened. "We could continue drinking at my place."

All he wants is to be away, with Anthony. Somewhere that both of them can let their walls down.

Edited 2018-12-16 04:20 (UTC)

Anthony smirks softly as he takes out his wallet to pay the bill. “Quite the compelling offer. But I don’t know if I require another drink.” This is what Anthony wants—the comforting playfulness of their script, the promise that words will soon be unnecessary.

If he were a better man, he might acknowledge that he is merely doing another sort of compartmentalizing. He is tucking away how Gabriel looked at him with eyes full of hope and hurt, and how his own heart twisted in response. He is walling off the realization that Gabriel had expected more of him, and that he likely would again, and that Anthony isn’t at ease with that. Confronting their emotions head-on—pesky, changeable, hopeless things that they are—will do more harm than good, he tells himself.

So Anthony tucks them all away, intending to enjoy just what is in front of him.

“Shall we be off, my good Mercutio?”

Gabriel rolls his eyes but he smiles behind his glass as he finishes his drink.

For a moment the whole thing feels like a strategic retreat into something comfortable and familiar between them. He's seen flashes of unguarded sincerity and passion when they've been together before, and some part of him hopes that those weren't flukes. Still, he tries not to think too deeply about it as he pushes away from the bar. Unlike Anthony, his ability to compartmentalize is shaky at best and ephemeral.

It's cold enough that Gabriel gets them a ride rather than taking the walk. He's quiet for most of it but his fingers find Anthony's in the dark back seat, briefly lacing together. He pays when they arrive at the Bramford and he feels his heart starting to pick up again. Confessional things linger on the tip of his tongue, but he feels like he must protect himself somehow in keeping them to himself. If he's going to lay himself bare, it will have to wait.

Either way, it feels like an inevitability; a when rather than an if.

"Did you really like the play?" he asks as they get to his door, curious now that he's able to focus for even half a moment on the fact that Anthony came to watch it at all.

Anthony remains quiet on the way home, and though tension still lingers between them in the silence, he is less concerned about it now. Yes, something between them had been knocked off-kilted and neither of them had been at their best, but Anthony had conceded that he had not acted as he should, and Gabriel had realized that he had misread Anthony’s absence. With their misunderstanding behind them, all could return to normal.

He lets Gabriel pay, only attempting to insist that he should be the one doing so, and follows him up to his apartment. “I did,” he says. “It is an easy play to tell by rote, and not one of my favorites for that very reason. But the production managed to put some life into it."

"It lost all it's charm for me when I realized it really does take place in just a few days," he says with a rueful little smile. "But I wanted something to keep me busy, and I like Mercutio."

He might have been happy with a bit part, too, but he's pleased with what he has.

Gabriel sheds his coat once they're in the apartment, and again he feels the anxiety welling up in his chest. Is all really mended, or is there another shoe just waiting to drop? And if there is, will it be him that makes it fall?

He turns toward Anthony and brushes his fingers along his jaw before he leans to kiss him.

"I did miss you," he confesses quietly in the space between them, less guarded than he'd been in the bar.

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