The Freudian Slip (14/15) Part Two cont.
Continue reading here because post limits will be the death of me.
*“Heeeey young blood!” a shrill and somewhat angry voice calls out the moment Jack and Alex step through the threshold of the university student’s apartment. They never really spend any time there since Gaskarth’s home is larger and more private. For a moment the specimen thinks it is a greeting of sorts, but as music begins to play he realizes the singer must have no idea they have even entered. “Doesn't it feel, like o-o-our time is running out?” The disc jockey turns to his boyfriend, who does not offer any sort of explanation. They both shuck off their shoes and continue down to the kitchen where Barakat has promised to make dinner.
“I'm gonna change you--like a remix,” chants the singer, perfectly timed to the actual song but not quite as low in tone. Alex will admit that the person sounds pretty good, if not a bit too loud, but chooses not to comment as Jack seems to be deaf to the noise. The disc jockey gestures in askance, trying to offer to help out as the pots and pans are pulled out, but it is impossible to make himself heard. “Then I'll raise you--- like a pho-eeenix!”
After a few moments of skewed hand signals Jack finally seems to register what the real issue is and raises a finger so that he can have a moment. He walks into the room where presumably the music is coming from and after a sharp declaration of, “Put on your war paint!” all sound cuts off. It then replaced with equally frustrated shouts in Spanish that confirm for Alex that is must be Jack’s roommate making all fuss.
“Ay hombre, que pasa?” demands the outraged Uruguayan, oblivious to their houseguest. A string of more hushed Spanish follows, causing Gabe to chortle and snicker. “Okay, okay” he acquiesces, muttering something more about ‘enamorados’ with ‘absolutely no taste in music’ before appearing in the kitchen, an annoyed Barakat hot on his heels.
“Alex!” Saporta greets jovially, clearly ignoring any warning his roommate has given him as he strides over to give the disc jockey a sturdy handshake and an enthusiastic pat on the back. He smiles winningly at their guest, that same natural charisma from the restaurant but somehow more intimate when he is standing in their tiny student-sized kitchen in nothing but a pair of grey sweatpants.
“Hi,” answers Gaskarth lamely, his own innate alpha male personality always seeming to shrink away in the other’s presence.
“How have you been? You look good,” continues Gabe, gesturing for Alex to sit. He silently offers the choice of iced tea or water and when Gaskarth takes the tea he takes the water for himself and sits across from his guest. Jack resumes his actions in the kitchen, seemingly uninterested. “Jack mentioned you guys go swimming a lot now, it’s paid off.”
“Uhm, thanks,” replies the disc jockey, fiddling with the cap of his bottle.
“No really,” insists Gabriel, eyeing the other. “Now that it’s summer you gotta have that beach bod, am I right?”
“It’s not like you have anything to worry about,” Alex gives in finally, hackles raised and eyes narrowing as he also gives Saporta a look over. “You’re good-looking, you’ve got that whole Latin-charm going on and you can sing to boot.”
“Me?” demands Gabe, a blush that would normally be hidden by a shirt breaks out on his chest and neck. “Hermano, don’t think I don’t know who you are. I mean-I don’t want to embarrass you or anything, but I know for a fact you can sing.”
“Jack told you about my old band,” guesses Alex, his figurative tail between his legs now as he avoids the other’s gaze.
“No, I told him,” corrects Saporta, “I went to a couple of your shows, you know. You were good, could’ve been great.”
“Yeah, well, coulda-woulda-shoulda,” dismisses the ex-lead singer.
“Too true,” agrees the philosophy major, much to the other’s surprise. The few fans that Gaskarth has encountered over the past year have always called him out right away, quick to question his decision to end it all.
“But you never know what’s in store for the future right?” Gabriel continues. “I mean, nobody really thought the hiatus would end but there you have it.”
“Hiatus?” questions Gaskarth dumbly.
Saporta’s eyes widen in disbelief. “Oh come on, the hiatus, the hiatus of all hiatuses? Man, where have you been? Did you not recognize the tune I was just playing? Fall Out Boy, hombre, they’re back!”
“I-” flounders Alex. He has been trying to get back into the music scene, but he seems to have been massively ignorant of any sort of return of one of his all time favourite bands.
“Dios santo,” curses the Uruguayan, grabbing onto the other’s arm and pulling him up forcefully from his seat. “You’ve got to hear this,” and with that Alex is dragged away. He looks back for a second, to make sure this is all okay with Barakat, but the psychology major is tossing a pinch of salt into a pot of boiling water and shoos him off with a wave of his hand.
“Brilliant, no?” demands Gabe after they have listened to the two released singles a good five times each. He has parked the houseguest on his messily made bed while he has begun to dress properly, looking extra suave in pair of black trousers and a button up purple shirt. He had been shameless as he changed, entirely comfortable to walk around his disaster of a room in skimpy boxer shorts as he rooted around for the iron. Alex had done his best to look away, not so much because he fears accusations of being gay---a little late for that, no?--- but because he does not want to think of the fact that Jack must be used to the sight. He also really does not want to consider whether the psychology major has ever tried acting on it.
“Brilliant,” agrees Gaskarth, watching openly now as a fully clothed Saporta messes about with his hair in a mirror. “Hey, you going somewhere nice tonight?”
“What? Yeah,” admits Gabe, his enthusiastic tone dropping low to a more shy and unnatural tone. “I…have a date, actually.”
“Really?” asks the disc jockey teasingly. “Who with?”
“Marisol?” guesses Jack, walking in silently and stepping up behind Gabriel to help him fix his hair from the back.
“Yeah,” sighs Saporta, fidgeting underneath his roommate’s nimble fingers but letting Barakat do as he pleases.
“Finally grew the cojones to ask her out then?” prompts the psychology major.
“Eh! I was waiting for the right moment,” defends Gabe.
“He’s been waiting two months,” Barakat informs Alex with a smirk as he steps away to admire his handiwork.
Gaskarth nods understandingly. A little part of his mind is screaming at the confirmation that the Uruguayan is in fact straight and not interested in Jack.
“Well,” Saporta sighs again, “I better go. I don’t want to be late.” He tosses a few CDs Alex’s way. “If you liked FOB’s new stuff, you better check these out. Brendon Urie’s vocals alone will make you cream your pants.”
Bisexual then, the disc jockey mentally corrects himself.
“Wish me luck,” insists the philosophy major, shaking at his roommate’s shoulders out of nerves.
“You don’t need it,” counters Barakat, shoving at Gabe with a knowing grin on his face. “But good luck.”
The Uruguayan turns to Alex for a final time. “It was good seeing you, come by more often and we can jam. You’re welcome to mess about,” he gestures towards his two guitars lined up against one shelf, “But if you guys have sex on my bed, I’ll burn Jack’s second edition of Freud’s “The Interpretations of Dreams” in the original German.”
“You wouldn’t,” admonishes his roommate, looking strangely solemn.
“I would,” threatens Gabe as he grabs his wallet and walks out. “And pour the ashes into your morning coffee.”
“Goodbye Gabe.”
“Love you too.”
*“Did you want to take up Gabe’s offer?” prompts Jack later on when they have finished off the leftover pieces of cake he has offered as desert.
“What?” asks Alex, blushing a bit at the image that comes to mind. He is always up for sex but would really rather not do it in someone else’s bed.
“Not that offer,” Barakat laughs, but gives his specimen a little wink. “My bed is free for that. I meant messing with the guitars.”
“Oh, um, well…” trails off the disc jockey not really knowing what to say. He still has a few of his guitars, and his original one is still stored in his parent’s home. But he has not bothered playing in a while now.
“I’m not very good,” lies Jack, with the modesty of one who is basically good at everything. “Piano is more my thing.”
“I remember,” Alex recalls, thinking of the CD he received for Christmas and the way Barakat’s playing had made him feel, really and truly feel, again.
He relents when Barakat tugs on his hands, something he seems to have picked up from Gabe, and drags him back into Saporta’s room, which has been left open while Jack’s room is firmly shut. He assumes they will relocate there once they retrieve the guitars but Barakat settles down on his roommate’s bed and Alex cannot help but think he looks good on it.
Honestly, he is surprised how his jealously flares up. He is usually not a possessive person; he has slept around too much for that. Yet there is something special about Jack, something that makes Gaskarth want to hide the other away from the world and keep him all to himself. It is a strange feeling, an unsettling stirring in his gut that is not quite the same as his regular bouts of anxiety. This feeling is lighter and airy, making him feel full and a bit silly. If he were sentimental he would call it bliss, if he were stupid he might even call it ‘love’.
It is a good thing he is not stupid.
Sure, in retrospect Alex has done a lot of stupid things.
But he was never unaware of his stupidity.
He merely chose to ignore it.
So going against his better judgment, he picks up the string instrument and settles down beside the university student. It takes a moment for his senses to recognize what sits in his lap, but as soon as they do it is like he has never let go of that sleek neck and curved body. The familiar smell of wood and polish is like an old lover’s perfume and the tiny burn of the strings are like nails crawling down one’s naked back. It all feels so good, and Alex wants to say it is like water in the desert but he did not even realize how thirsty he was until he has the instrument in his hands. He strums a few times, getting a feel for the sound, and the memories seem to rush back to him. He sits up straighter, his wrists tighten and he cannot help but smile. On second thought, it is like riding a bike because one cannot forget how this works.
“Play something,” Jack encourages him softly, almost startling Alex because he had been so caught up.
“I- what song?” he asks, afraid now, as all the pressure of playing well also comes back.
“Anything,” Barakat replies simply, “Make something up if you want. You used to write songs, yeah? Write me one. Tell me what it feels like.”
“Huh? What ‘what’ feels like?” demands the disc jockey, anxious now as he is reminded of their old manager, their old producer, and their old fans. Their old everything. Gone.
But the amateur psychoanalyst says nothing more, just taps on the guitar once before lying back on the bed. Gaskarth sits there, numb and panicked, but unable to let go of the instrument. He does not understand what Jack wants. He does not understand why it even matters what Jack wants. But Jack wants. And maybe Alex wants too.
His voice is a low murmur as he tries to find the right chords. He doesn’t know what to sing about, does not want to think about anything in the immediate present when that bubbly feeling in his stomach is still there. So of course he reverts to thoughts of his youth, the playground games and fights and just like that he is thinking of the time Rian broke his ribs. “From the scrapes and bruises,” He thinks of the way Zack was yelling for Rian to stop, of how Flyzik started yelling for the police, which wasn’t even a surprise because Flyzik always seemed to be yelling at the band.
Finally, he thinks of how his dad used to yell when he would get caught stealing from the liquor cabinet. “To the familiar abuses.” He thinks of the time they got signed and passed out drunk on the lawn, how being drunk was easier, and how being famous was a dream come true. “I'll kick and scream but it never changes anything.”
But living the dream didn’t stop the nightmares, the insecurities-- the sound of retching into a toilet after dinner. “I could spill my guts out,” He thinks about how the music could never drown that out. That no matter how many times you flushed you could still smell the vomit, the same way he can still see Sam every time he visits his blond doctor.
“Wearing my best little girl pout.” He thinks it would be easier if he could just forget all these things. “And I almost missed it.” That maybe one of his car crashes can cause amnesia and his life will stop feeling like a soap opera. “But nobody said that this was gonna be easy.”
But then he thinks about the fact that every time he looks into a mirror he already has no idea who is looking back at him. That he has already forgotten about ‘Xander’, and the three words you’re supposed to remember when dealing with the end. “This is not the man I hoped to be.”
He thinks about the past months he has spent wrapped in bandages and covered in bruises. He thinks of how tired his mother looked when she came to visit him the hospital on New Year’s Day. “And I'm just trying to stop the bleeding.” He thinks of the way Jack looked at him when he pulled off the other’s Batman mask on Halloween night and convinced him that he would be good for Alex. “I don't know how to word it.”
He thinks of how he would have never met Jack if he didn’t decide to move to a new town and open up the ‘The Party Scene’. He thinks about how hard it was to leave everything else behind. “I just started to deserve it.” He thinks about seeing all his old friends at Rian’s birthday party and how he knew he couldn’t stay and celebrate with them.
“And all my, all my faces are alibis,” He thinks about all the different fans he’s met, all the different strangers he’s let suck his cock-- including his best friend-- and how Gabe is the only one who has always known who he is. “Most times it all comes out wrong.” And yet somehow Saporta is always nice to him. It makes Alex want to hate the Uruguayan, hate him how he sometimes hates Jack in a pair of soggy swim shorts. But mostly he thinks that he hates them both for caring for each other so strongly without ever having to saying it.
“I don't know the words but I'll hum along.” He thinks about how Rian should tell Zack how he feels when it was always so easy for Alex to tell Sam he loved him. But then he thinks he’ll never be able to tell Danny how thankful he was to find him under that black hoodie and that there was someone out there who saw sunshine coming from that black hole. “There's nothing familiar here anymore. To anyone. Or anything left to feel alive.”
He was bitter, and now he thinks about bitter tasting coffee and the way Eric isn’t so much of a waiter but a watcher. “And I still taste that sickness.” And it makes him wonder what Eric sees in him, what his ex-girlfriend saw him in and whether that one bitch ever saw what she’d lost when she left Sammy. “And it makes me crazy without it at best.” He thinks about wearing a ring while he broke promises. How that ring wasn’t meant to fit so well and how after a while his jeans were too big for him. “But I'm in the same place I used to be.” He thinks about sleeping in a van every night only to throw up the first he got to sleep in a hotel bed. “But I'm trying harder not to be.”
He thinks of the day he decided to dye his hair an electric looking purple. “So what am I?" He thinks of how Jack clearly loves Ewan McGregor in ‘Trainspotting’ even though he’s got an awful buzz cut. And the he thinks that’s okay because he fell in love when he saw Brad Pitt in ‘Fight Club’ and yet he still hated Sam for being gay. “What am I?” He decides that it doesn’t matter, that nothing matters, that everything stopped mattering when Zack gave him to a plastic keychain to clip to his pants so he wouldn’t lose his keys when he was too drunk to see his front door. “So what am I?”
He thinks about the cigarette he used to keep behind his ear and how he never smoked it but wished for death to come a little bit faster anyways. “Don't want it, don't get it.” He thinks about the fact that he’s too narcissistic for suicide and too selfish to remember to eat three meals a day. “I know you won't regret it.”
“Don't surface, don't surface.” He thinks about shitting his pants before his competition and how the best part about being underwater is that you’re not required to keep breathing. “And I feel so damned worthless.”
But mostly, he thinks about how this isn’t true. How nothing he said or did was real until he went out for tacos with Jack. “Another day is gone and all my faces are alibis.” He thinks about choking on hot sauce and how milk saved his life when rum and whiskey couldn’t. He thinks about the pills he is required to take every morning and how the summer has the shortest nights but feel so long on the days that Jack has his night class. “All my faces are alibis.”
And despite his best intentions, he thinks of Jack, Jack right now, lying beside him so that his shirt rides up and Alex can see pale hipbones and not enough chest hair for such hairy legs. He thinks of how he wants to see the other naked even if they’re on someone else’s bed because nothing is too weird when Barakat’s around. Jack makes everything normal, even someone like Gaskarth who used to be a rock star and but forgot how to play his guitar. “And me, I'm half the man I wanted to be.” (2)
It takes him a moment to realize he is finished, but his hands move on their own, carefully setting down the guitar. Suddenly feeling as if all the air in his lungs has escaped too quickly, the disc jockey lies down too, turning towards his boyfriend to see his eyes are closed. Alex wonders if he has fallen asleep somehow, but when he knocks their shoulders together the other opens them immediately and in a flutter of thick lashes he spots teardrops.
“Why are you crying?” he asks, his voice foreign to his own ears after hearing himself sing again.
“Same reason you’re crying,” replies Jack.
Gaskarth touches his own face but finds it dry. “I’m not crying,” he informs Barakat slowly.
“No?” asks the amateur psychoanalyst, sounding too bemused to be sincere. “Alright, just me then. Well, it’s a beautiful song Alex.”
“Thanks,” he replies, trying to recall exactly what he sang about so he can write it down later and maybe edit it, but he draws up blank. Usually he is very good at remembering that sort of thing but the spontaneity of the moment must have gotten to him. Regardless, he cannot shake the feeling that singing has given him, this empty calm but happy feeling that is most definitely bliss.
“You’re a very beautiful person,” continues Jack more seriously. His brown eyes are now blown wide with sincerity and earnest and Alex silently vows to start up singing again if it gets Jack to look at him like that more often. “All the little broken parts of you. Beautiful and so valuable.”
Gaskarth, too stunned to speak, nods in disagreement. The university student kisses him in retaliation, soft and barely there, but that warmth is enough to prove it is real.
“You can’t see it yet,” observes Barakat, more to himself than his specimen, “But you will.”
-----
A/N: Okay, I know I promised the climax last time but I’m afraid I’m going to have to push it back for the next part. I’ve been having some issues with plot holes and I’ve done some major editing of what I initially had planned for this story so please bear with me. 14.3 will be posted soon and I mean actually soon because I already have approximately 12 pages of it done and I don’t intend for it to be more than about 15. (I was going to wait to post everything all at once but I’m too antsy and I can imagine everyone was also antsy.) Therefore chapter 15 will have to be split into two parts, and the second will be the epilogue. I know you guys are worried that TFS will end in major heartbreak and well, you’re kinda not wrong, BUT there is a disgustingly sweet epilogue to make things better.
As always thanks for reading, your patience and your support.
Notes:
1. Benzos is slang for Benzodiazepine, a psychoactive drug used to treat anxiety, insomnia, alcohol withdrawal etc. It’s not recommended for long-term use because of its addictive qualities and can actually end up worsening a patient’s symptoms.
Pregabalin is an anticonvulsant drug also used to treat anxiety disorders. The World Federation of Biological Psychiatry recommends pregabalin as one of several first line agents for the treatment of Generalized Anxiety Disorder. It is preferred over benzos because it is less addictive.
*While it is important to get medical treatment when being treated for GAD you should always be aware of the fact that these pills are drugs and as they alter and work to balance your body, your body does become dependent on them. Though GAD is technically considered incurable, people do not generally take anxiety medication for the rest of their lives and will experience anxiety attacks as they suffer from withdrawal. This is normal and necessary.
→I say this because I want you to understand what happens next in the story. Not because I have any medical training to diagnose or treat anyone with GAD. I like to do my research, but I recently graduated with a degree in fucking art. Please keep that mind.
2. The lyrics sung by Alex are actually taken from Alibis by Marianas Trench. If TFS had a soundtrack, this would be the specimen’s song.