circular narratives are a bitch to write :0
fill in the blanket (bed scenes)
three variations on a theme for circuity, with love. sorry for making you wait so long! i wanted to get it right, and even now i'm still not too sure i did. :s
(ths gen; chris/greta/darren if you squint; wentz/flowers; saporta/beckett; saporta/trohman)
a note: part I changes details from the events of greta’s 08.27.2006 entry from the THS journal.
other notes at the end.
&&&&&
i. how to get out & how to stay in
It’s late afternoon, the house is empty; Greta falls asleep in the upstairs hallway. Underneath her, the mottled-green carpet secretly likes to pretend it’s a forest floor, mossy and soft.
This is how she got there:
Simply, and without pretenses. From the ticking spin of bicycle wheels to the click-whirr of a key turning in a lock -- her mind is so clear, and it’s an odd feeling, she thinks, to be so calm. To hear everything and think about nothing.
The telephone rings wholeheartedly as she comes up the stairs. It’s Bob, asking if she got home from the funeral alright, no that’s a stupid question, are you, umm, okay?
She says yes to both his questions, no, don’t -- to the way his voice shakes in the sentences that come after. She’s not sure who hangs up first, but she can feel the house wilt against its foundations at the soft click, and she sinks to the floor with that same weight, closes her eyes.
( she isn’t old enough to have mastered the art of crying silently,
but maybe she is. )
This is how she is found:
One hour later, asleep but dreamless, lying in a stray patch of twilight sun. She looks like a sunbeam by extension, if that’s even possible.
“I let myself in, the key in that flowerpot, Greta, I -- I came to check on you -- ” is what Chris said when he first arrived, but the walls never carried that odd telegram-like statement up the stairs, his stops and starts fading into the plaster. When he reaches the hallway and sees Greta there, his mouth doesn’t know whether to grin or frown, so it twitches in the corners as he walks towards her.
Which brings us back to how she lies there:
Like a sunbeam by extension, if that’s even possible.
These things, with them, are always possible. In Chris’ mind, this is the kind of charmed life they lead. There’s no other way to explain how he can gather her into his arms as easily (albeit clumsily) as this: one arm to support her knees, another behind her shoulders, as if he was pulling her to shore from an open ocean. It’s necessity and convoluted physics and their charmed lifespans, working together.
I tried to be softer, the carpet calls after him. I hope it helped!
The floorboards cooperate, muffling their creaks, yielding a bit better to his steps.
And it’s only maybe eight steps to her bedroom, anyway, which is the same cream color it has always been, and promises to still be, when --
“…Where’s my shotgun wedding?”
Greta’s eyes blink open, and Chris blinks back at her, matching her rhythm.
Chris isn’t sure he needs to ask, but “-- What?”
“You and me and this carrying, Christopher, across the threshold.” She looks up at him, smiles winsomely.
“What makes you so sure I’m the marrying kind?” Chris laughs, gently but unceremoniously setting Greta down on her bed. Gravity helps him cheerfully.
“Christopher Gregory,” Greta says regally from her downy cotton kingdom, “I concluded long ago that someone will marry you, whether you want to or not.” Chris chooses a small space near the edge of the bed, laying his head perpendicular to her feet.
“For what,” Chris says, yawning.
“…Not your childbearing hips,” Darren declares from the doorway, unaware of how far and how well his own voice can travel. “At least, I don’t think so.” He knocks on the doorframe in a residual gesture of courtesy.
Greta laughs, motions him in. He is all surprises and smiles, openness, good faith. He is the kind of person stray animals would trust, although Greta doesn’t know why she thinks of him like that.
If Greta was sick he would be bearing soup, but it’s more like a tiredness that can’t be shaken; something that catches itself in the corners of eyes or the spaces between fingers. For this he has brought her a book.
It’s an old, leatherbound volume of Grimm’s Fairytales -- the version, Darren says, where people put up more of a fight and evil stepsisters’ feet get cut. Greta kisses him on a sandpapery cheek, admits “I know you are a Disney loyalist, so thank you.”
The book tells its own slightly battered life story, mildew spots and unidentifiable stains on its poor secondhand self, like battle scars. Apparently this is Darren’s prescription for blues: stories printed on other stories. Greta loves it immediately, with the whole of her heart.
(Greta thinks she does this a lot, see things and people maybe once and then love them entirely too much. It’s not really a bad habit, but a guilty pleasure probably, like Chris’ cigarettes, Darren’s threadbare boyband shirts.)
This is all that’s left to know:
The kind of sleep that feels the easiest, the simple comfort of their company. Darren reads to her parts of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, a story she knows and that Chris doesn’t, but would like to. Greta laughs with her eyes closed sometimes, at the same rate that Darren’s ‘youngest daughter’ tone remains consistently awful.
At some point she falls asleep again to the sound of two boys’ incongruous voices, the way their sounds and silences fill the stops and gaps. They fit.
Why would the peasant want to marry the eldest princess anyway? They wonder to each other, keeping their voices low. She didn’t give a damn whether he lived or died, all she wanted to do was go dancing.
ii. nighttime city story with a bad moral
The moral is that there is none; there’s just no room for anything else when Brandon Flowers presses you against an alley wall so harshly you can feel the spaces between the bricks and mortar through your clothes, the acute sensation of concrete and friction running down the length of your spine.
It’s not that Pete struggles against the weight of him; what Pete is trying to do is regain control. It’s difficult to overcome his sudden momentum. Brandon digs his knee a little deeper into Pete’s thigh as a neon sign blinks on off on off on off above them, reducing everything to flickering and inconsistency, bad dreams on 8-millimeter film. It’s enough to make nerves tangle and impulses scatter, but neither of them will say that out loud.
Brandon leans in to bring their mouths into proximity and Pete turns his head away without a second thought, his body in protest by muscle memory. Somewhere between movies and books and television, his mouth must have learned to know better. It’s not that his mouth means to be saved for love, but it’s there, that gatekeeping instinct. To recognize only certain faces, certain warmths.
Pete looks at Brandon with eyes narrowed, jaw tightened, his mouth pressed into a line.
( some instincts Pete can’t hide: laughter, jealousy, desire.
but above all: a misplaced sense of honor. )
“Hooker romanticism,” Brandon hisses against Pete’s jaw, laughing darkly, dismissively. Cocksure smile, all mocking. He is a wolf at the door, teeth and breath at the ready. Pete wants to punch that perfect mouth until those white teeth cut right through, but that would be useless.
This is, after all, the kind of game won by deceit.
Pete kisses Brandon without tenderness, eyes open. These are the acts of war: these edges skimming edges, a kiss that says i will slit your throat, flowers, i swear to god. A mouth on another mouth in a contest of cruelty -- an elaborate business of death threats and dead chivalry.
Let it never be said Pete hasn’t manipulated anyone with that mouth. He knows how to move his tongue in unsurprisingly well-practiced, suitably effective ways. There will always be things that the body remembers even when the rest forgets.
Pete shifts his weight, pushes against the wall, forces Brandon to stagger backwards. He makes sure to nick Brandon’s bottom lip, break the skin a little, force a little blood to show through.
In this city, there are places where they don’t even look twice at two boys so disheveled, traces of blood on a collar or sleeve. There are places like that in every city, the kind that don’t ask any questions, since all answers are in the form of cash.
These are also the kind of places where the sheets are white only so it’s easier to tell
when they’re dirty.
And so here we are.
Violence escalates, madness descends; opposing motions make friction, make heat. And when it comes down to skin meeting skin, Brandon presses hard into fresh bruises from other places, other times, other people. Bites over other, older bitemarks. It’s the equivalent of wiping prints off a knife handle, or turning a doorknob with a handkerchief; destroying the evidence, concealing identity. It’s the idea of being untraceable. The idea of no-one will know i’ve been here, to do the things i’ve done.
( trespassing. vandalism. arson. )
Tomorrow morning will be a race to whomever can leave the dollar bills on the nightstand first: an accusation, an insinuation, an insult.
iii. why things burn
(the answer is catalysts, although oxygen shall also be accepted.)
“I ONLY KISS PEOPLE TO HURT THEIR FEELINGS,” Gabe declares broadly, complete with sweeping hand motions to the invisible cameras of the nonexistent press. And it’s just like him, really, this constant Q&A with himself -- it’s just like him to be so fucking quotable and still make no actual sense whatsoever. Or at least when he is this kite-like: high, but lightly tethered to the ground. Still, it’s a catchy phrase, and from a good mouth, no less.
Joseph Trohman is not really feeling level enough to be making wry, astute observations about the Saporta mystique, and so he won’t. Besides, he’s not really stoned enough, either.
He is, however, adequately warm, which is nice.
It’s a cold afternoon outside but the radiator’s on; the artificial heat makes everything senseless. They’re two boys sprawled idly on a ratty futon in a mutual friend’s apartment, all free time and no-place to go. Five p.m. is slow and generous, small hand-me-downs of salvation coming with every degree on the thermostat.
Joe passes him the blunt and Gabe accepts it without needing to move much. He tucks one arm behind his head as a makeshift pillow, takes a leisurely drag. From where he is lying he can see trees through the window, and he’s trying not to watch the patterns the sunlight is weaving through the leaves.
Lately he’s been trying not to think too much, for his own mental health, he says, but not succeeding.
Anything beyond this low futon and single godforsaken orange-leafed window seems to fade into the peripheral, in a sort of tunnel vision. Beside him, Joe is saying something they both know is inconsequential, and it’s uncluttered and certain. Simple.
Not that it wasn’t simple with William, Gabe thinks, and then stop thinking stop thinking. He inhales and exhales. It was. (stop thinking stop thinking)
Everything about William was so linear: shapes that cut cleanly through the air, claiming his space in the world with showy ferocity and very little effort.
Long fingers pointing one moment to accuse you, crooked and c’mere, c’mere the next. Shoulderblades meant to dig into your arm when exchanging dark looks in a crowded elevator.
His shadow in hotel room half-light, all taut lines and jagged angles, moving towards you in bed.
And it’s not that Gabe minded, really;
I’m just tired, he thinks, of things meaning things.
William could make you believe that your entire life could be reduced to a series of behaviors that get you laid: every movement unpracticed, but always leading somewhere. Borrowing money straight from your pocket, making sure to graze your hip a little. Holding microphones too close to his mouth, one hand on his stomach. Taking too long to tie a scarf around one leg, a pale strip of lower back showing.
Lines turning into patterns.
But this, this. No explanations, and none needed.
It’s just -- we’re here, this is nice, so let’s make the most of it, shall we? Like that.
( and when Gabe really thinks about it, about him and William, ‘what we had together’ makes them sound more like the common cold; as if they caught each other by simple exposure. as if desire was a symptom that could be cured with hot chicken soup and lots of sex.
you know: a fever of lust, burning or whatever. )
With Joe it’s easy; when they talk or don’t talk or cough or laugh it’s for No Reason, which is, of course, the ultimate reason to do anything.
It gets to a point where they are half-singing Lifetime songs together, neither of them hearing the other completely clearly. They keep making small mistakes they don’t notice, switching words like "living" for words like "little", words like "over" for words like "enough".
And sure, that could mean something -- the little underlying shifts, tiny tremors under the surface, new alignments maybe -- but god, what means anything today, in this heat, this light, so heavy and tangible you could carve things out of it.
( two out of two boys on this damp backroom futon agree:
people just read too much into things. )
Joe tells Gabe about what his great-great-grandmother told him once, about her old life in another continent. How because of religious laws against embalming, and the climate, and air conditioning not being invented yet, memorial services were held on the same day someone passed away.
How there were always people running off to shotgun funerals on their lunchbreaks, keeping an yarmulke in the glove compartment, just in case.
Joe tells stories like this for no reason. It’s nice.
“Emergency fucking yarmulkes,” Joe laughs. “I dunno, man. I mean…”
And then a thoughtful pause. Gabe raises his hand slightly off of the sheets. The blunt is on its last few seconds, ash scattering just a little. He lets the smoke spill idly out of his mouth, trying to rearrange the blank look on his face into something expressing innocence.
“Gabe. Gabe. That’s just. Not cool.” Joe halfheartedly swats him, not meaning it at all. “That’s the last one ‘till --”
“Ah. Ah. That’s not really a problem, come here.” Gabe says, and in charming illogic, moves towards Joe instead, rolling onto his stomach.
Gabe takes one last drag on the end, presses their mouths together. There’s a warmth that travels between them. It's simple. It feels like it’s enough.
There’s no softness between them, not that they miss it. The sheets are old and rough underneath them; their lips are dry from breathing and talking and the artificial temperatures. Gabe knows this last hit isn’t worth anything -- it’s meaningless, and that’s why it’s worth doing.
Underneath him, he can feel Joe’s chest rising a little, yielding very easily.
Gabe grins down at Joe with self-satisfaction. He is the definition of warm-blooded, and he carries it well.
“You’re a solutions kind of guy, Saporta,” Joe nods agreeably, smile not quite becoming a laugh. He shifts slightly under Gabe’s weight, tilting his head back to breathe a little easier. “That’s good. You’re good, you know. To me.”
The afternoon spirals out around them protectively as the last of the blunt burns out between Gabe’s fingers in a long, slow curl. The light coming through the window is starting to turn pink at the edges, sunset catching up with them. The last few sunbeams pinning tree-shadows to the wall.
Two out of two boys don’t care.
…and i wouldn’t mind a shotgun funeral, actually, Gabe mumbles contentedly into the space between Joe’s shoulder and collarbone, voice hoarse from the smoke. it would be fine, as long as there’s dancing.
(fin.)
o1. OH MY GOD THIS TOOK FOREVER TO WRITE. which is why:
o2. sonstoodstammer will always be my safest place <3
o3. plainsong_x is clevercakes. with icing.
and callsigns is incredible math that always equals trohman!
o4. jenish is the best pocket shelterer a girl could ever ask for <
o5. _safi, angisageek, thegoldsky & clumsygyrl have big hearts for offering their help!
o6. i really want to give a prize to someone who can spot/diagram/map out all the repetition of images i used in this thing, it's loopy-crazy. (dancing! fairytale references! lines and patterns!) i need to learn how to write a straight-up proper linear story. next time i want to do a circular narrative, please punch me v. hard in the mouth.
o7. i don't think i'll be writing gabefic again anytime soon. i WANT to, but it's draining! and difficult!
but Spela, I hope you like this! ::loves on you:: :)
ETA~! o8. Thank you so much to _mydecember_ for the generous feature at her rec journal, letterbomb___! ♥
feedback is always repaid in full. xo
three variations on a theme for circuity, with love. sorry for making you wait so long! i wanted to get it right, and even now i'm still not too sure i did. :s
(ths gen; chris/greta/darren if you squint; wentz/flowers; saporta/beckett; saporta/trohman)
a note: part I changes details from the events of greta’s 08.27.2006 entry from the THS journal.
other notes at the end.
&&&&&
i. how to get out & how to stay in
It’s late afternoon, the house is empty; Greta falls asleep in the upstairs hallway. Underneath her, the mottled-green carpet secretly likes to pretend it’s a forest floor, mossy and soft.
This is how she got there:
Simply, and without pretenses. From the ticking spin of bicycle wheels to the click-whirr of a key turning in a lock -- her mind is so clear, and it’s an odd feeling, she thinks, to be so calm. To hear everything and think about nothing.
The telephone rings wholeheartedly as she comes up the stairs. It’s Bob, asking if she got home from the funeral alright, no that’s a stupid question, are you, umm, okay?
She says yes to both his questions, no, don’t -- to the way his voice shakes in the sentences that come after. She’s not sure who hangs up first, but she can feel the house wilt against its foundations at the soft click, and she sinks to the floor with that same weight, closes her eyes.
( she isn’t old enough to have mastered the art of crying silently,
but maybe she is. )
This is how she is found:
One hour later, asleep but dreamless, lying in a stray patch of twilight sun. She looks like a sunbeam by extension, if that’s even possible.
“I let myself in, the key in that flowerpot, Greta, I -- I came to check on you -- ” is what Chris said when he first arrived, but the walls never carried that odd telegram-like statement up the stairs, his stops and starts fading into the plaster. When he reaches the hallway and sees Greta there, his mouth doesn’t know whether to grin or frown, so it twitches in the corners as he walks towards her.
Which brings us back to how she lies there:
Like a sunbeam by extension, if that’s even possible.
These things, with them, are always possible. In Chris’ mind, this is the kind of charmed life they lead. There’s no other way to explain how he can gather her into his arms as easily (albeit clumsily) as this: one arm to support her knees, another behind her shoulders, as if he was pulling her to shore from an open ocean. It’s necessity and convoluted physics and their charmed lifespans, working together.
I tried to be softer, the carpet calls after him. I hope it helped!
The floorboards cooperate, muffling their creaks, yielding a bit better to his steps.
And it’s only maybe eight steps to her bedroom, anyway, which is the same cream color it has always been, and promises to still be, when --
“…Where’s my shotgun wedding?”
Greta’s eyes blink open, and Chris blinks back at her, matching her rhythm.
Chris isn’t sure he needs to ask, but “-- What?”
“You and me and this carrying, Christopher, across the threshold.” She looks up at him, smiles winsomely.
“What makes you so sure I’m the marrying kind?” Chris laughs, gently but unceremoniously setting Greta down on her bed. Gravity helps him cheerfully.
“Christopher Gregory,” Greta says regally from her downy cotton kingdom, “I concluded long ago that someone will marry you, whether you want to or not.” Chris chooses a small space near the edge of the bed, laying his head perpendicular to her feet.
“For what,” Chris says, yawning.
“…Not your childbearing hips,” Darren declares from the doorway, unaware of how far and how well his own voice can travel. “At least, I don’t think so.” He knocks on the doorframe in a residual gesture of courtesy.
Greta laughs, motions him in. He is all surprises and smiles, openness, good faith. He is the kind of person stray animals would trust, although Greta doesn’t know why she thinks of him like that.
If Greta was sick he would be bearing soup, but it’s more like a tiredness that can’t be shaken; something that catches itself in the corners of eyes or the spaces between fingers. For this he has brought her a book.
It’s an old, leatherbound volume of Grimm’s Fairytales -- the version, Darren says, where people put up more of a fight and evil stepsisters’ feet get cut. Greta kisses him on a sandpapery cheek, admits “I know you are a Disney loyalist, so thank you.”
The book tells its own slightly battered life story, mildew spots and unidentifiable stains on its poor secondhand self, like battle scars. Apparently this is Darren’s prescription for blues: stories printed on other stories. Greta loves it immediately, with the whole of her heart.
(Greta thinks she does this a lot, see things and people maybe once and then love them entirely too much. It’s not really a bad habit, but a guilty pleasure probably, like Chris’ cigarettes, Darren’s threadbare boyband shirts.)
This is all that’s left to know:
The kind of sleep that feels the easiest, the simple comfort of their company. Darren reads to her parts of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, a story she knows and that Chris doesn’t, but would like to. Greta laughs with her eyes closed sometimes, at the same rate that Darren’s ‘youngest daughter’ tone remains consistently awful.
At some point she falls asleep again to the sound of two boys’ incongruous voices, the way their sounds and silences fill the stops and gaps. They fit.
Why would the peasant want to marry the eldest princess anyway? They wonder to each other, keeping their voices low. She didn’t give a damn whether he lived or died, all she wanted to do was go dancing.
ii. nighttime city story with a bad moral
The moral is that there is none; there’s just no room for anything else when Brandon Flowers presses you against an alley wall so harshly you can feel the spaces between the bricks and mortar through your clothes, the acute sensation of concrete and friction running down the length of your spine.
It’s not that Pete struggles against the weight of him; what Pete is trying to do is regain control. It’s difficult to overcome his sudden momentum. Brandon digs his knee a little deeper into Pete’s thigh as a neon sign blinks on off on off on off above them, reducing everything to flickering and inconsistency, bad dreams on 8-millimeter film. It’s enough to make nerves tangle and impulses scatter, but neither of them will say that out loud.
Brandon leans in to bring their mouths into proximity and Pete turns his head away without a second thought, his body in protest by muscle memory. Somewhere between movies and books and television, his mouth must have learned to know better. It’s not that his mouth means to be saved for love, but it’s there, that gatekeeping instinct. To recognize only certain faces, certain warmths.
Pete looks at Brandon with eyes narrowed, jaw tightened, his mouth pressed into a line.
( some instincts Pete can’t hide: laughter, jealousy, desire.
but above all: a misplaced sense of honor. )
“Hooker romanticism,” Brandon hisses against Pete’s jaw, laughing darkly, dismissively. Cocksure smile, all mocking. He is a wolf at the door, teeth and breath at the ready. Pete wants to punch that perfect mouth until those white teeth cut right through, but that would be useless.
This is, after all, the kind of game won by deceit.
Pete kisses Brandon without tenderness, eyes open. These are the acts of war: these edges skimming edges, a kiss that says i will slit your throat, flowers, i swear to god. A mouth on another mouth in a contest of cruelty -- an elaborate business of death threats and dead chivalry.
Let it never be said Pete hasn’t manipulated anyone with that mouth. He knows how to move his tongue in unsurprisingly well-practiced, suitably effective ways. There will always be things that the body remembers even when the rest forgets.
Pete shifts his weight, pushes against the wall, forces Brandon to stagger backwards. He makes sure to nick Brandon’s bottom lip, break the skin a little, force a little blood to show through.
In this city, there are places where they don’t even look twice at two boys so disheveled, traces of blood on a collar or sleeve. There are places like that in every city, the kind that don’t ask any questions, since all answers are in the form of cash.
These are also the kind of places where the sheets are white only so it’s easier to tell
when they’re dirty.
And so here we are.
Violence escalates, madness descends; opposing motions make friction, make heat. And when it comes down to skin meeting skin, Brandon presses hard into fresh bruises from other places, other times, other people. Bites over other, older bitemarks. It’s the equivalent of wiping prints off a knife handle, or turning a doorknob with a handkerchief; destroying the evidence, concealing identity. It’s the idea of being untraceable. The idea of no-one will know i’ve been here, to do the things i’ve done.
( trespassing. vandalism. arson. )
Tomorrow morning will be a race to whomever can leave the dollar bills on the nightstand first: an accusation, an insinuation, an insult.
iii. why things burn
(the answer is catalysts, although oxygen shall also be accepted.)
“I ONLY KISS PEOPLE TO HURT THEIR FEELINGS,” Gabe declares broadly, complete with sweeping hand motions to the invisible cameras of the nonexistent press. And it’s just like him, really, this constant Q&A with himself -- it’s just like him to be so fucking quotable and still make no actual sense whatsoever. Or at least when he is this kite-like: high, but lightly tethered to the ground. Still, it’s a catchy phrase, and from a good mouth, no less.
Joseph Trohman is not really feeling level enough to be making wry, astute observations about the Saporta mystique, and so he won’t. Besides, he’s not really stoned enough, either.
He is, however, adequately warm, which is nice.
It’s a cold afternoon outside but the radiator’s on; the artificial heat makes everything senseless. They’re two boys sprawled idly on a ratty futon in a mutual friend’s apartment, all free time and no-place to go. Five p.m. is slow and generous, small hand-me-downs of salvation coming with every degree on the thermostat.
Joe passes him the blunt and Gabe accepts it without needing to move much. He tucks one arm behind his head as a makeshift pillow, takes a leisurely drag. From where he is lying he can see trees through the window, and he’s trying not to watch the patterns the sunlight is weaving through the leaves.
Lately he’s been trying not to think too much, for his own mental health, he says, but not succeeding.
Anything beyond this low futon and single godforsaken orange-leafed window seems to fade into the peripheral, in a sort of tunnel vision. Beside him, Joe is saying something they both know is inconsequential, and it’s uncluttered and certain. Simple.
Not that it wasn’t simple with William, Gabe thinks, and then stop thinking stop thinking. He inhales and exhales. It was. (stop thinking stop thinking)
Everything about William was so linear: shapes that cut cleanly through the air, claiming his space in the world with showy ferocity and very little effort.
Long fingers pointing one moment to accuse you, crooked and c’mere, c’mere the next. Shoulderblades meant to dig into your arm when exchanging dark looks in a crowded elevator.
His shadow in hotel room half-light, all taut lines and jagged angles, moving towards you in bed.
And it’s not that Gabe minded, really;
I’m just tired, he thinks, of things meaning things.
William could make you believe that your entire life could be reduced to a series of behaviors that get you laid: every movement unpracticed, but always leading somewhere. Borrowing money straight from your pocket, making sure to graze your hip a little. Holding microphones too close to his mouth, one hand on his stomach. Taking too long to tie a scarf around one leg, a pale strip of lower back showing.
Lines turning into patterns.
But this, this. No explanations, and none needed.
It’s just -- we’re here, this is nice, so let’s make the most of it, shall we? Like that.
( and when Gabe really thinks about it, about him and William, ‘what we had together’ makes them sound more like the common cold; as if they caught each other by simple exposure. as if desire was a symptom that could be cured with hot chicken soup and lots of sex.
you know: a fever of lust, burning or whatever. )
With Joe it’s easy; when they talk or don’t talk or cough or laugh it’s for No Reason, which is, of course, the ultimate reason to do anything.
It gets to a point where they are half-singing Lifetime songs together, neither of them hearing the other completely clearly. They keep making small mistakes they don’t notice, switching words like "living" for words like "little", words like "over" for words like "enough".
And sure, that could mean something -- the little underlying shifts, tiny tremors under the surface, new alignments maybe -- but god, what means anything today, in this heat, this light, so heavy and tangible you could carve things out of it.
( two out of two boys on this damp backroom futon agree:
people just read too much into things. )
Joe tells Gabe about what his great-great-grandmother told him once, about her old life in another continent. How because of religious laws against embalming, and the climate, and air conditioning not being invented yet, memorial services were held on the same day someone passed away.
How there were always people running off to shotgun funerals on their lunchbreaks, keeping an yarmulke in the glove compartment, just in case.
Joe tells stories like this for no reason. It’s nice.
“Emergency fucking yarmulkes,” Joe laughs. “I dunno, man. I mean…”
And then a thoughtful pause. Gabe raises his hand slightly off of the sheets. The blunt is on its last few seconds, ash scattering just a little. He lets the smoke spill idly out of his mouth, trying to rearrange the blank look on his face into something expressing innocence.
“Gabe. Gabe. That’s just. Not cool.” Joe halfheartedly swats him, not meaning it at all. “That’s the last one ‘till --”
“Ah. Ah. That’s not really a problem, come here.” Gabe says, and in charming illogic, moves towards Joe instead, rolling onto his stomach.
Gabe takes one last drag on the end, presses their mouths together. There’s a warmth that travels between them. It's simple. It feels like it’s enough.
There’s no softness between them, not that they miss it. The sheets are old and rough underneath them; their lips are dry from breathing and talking and the artificial temperatures. Gabe knows this last hit isn’t worth anything -- it’s meaningless, and that’s why it’s worth doing.
Underneath him, he can feel Joe’s chest rising a little, yielding very easily.
Gabe grins down at Joe with self-satisfaction. He is the definition of warm-blooded, and he carries it well.
“You’re a solutions kind of guy, Saporta,” Joe nods agreeably, smile not quite becoming a laugh. He shifts slightly under Gabe’s weight, tilting his head back to breathe a little easier. “That’s good. You’re good, you know. To me.”
The afternoon spirals out around them protectively as the last of the blunt burns out between Gabe’s fingers in a long, slow curl. The light coming through the window is starting to turn pink at the edges, sunset catching up with them. The last few sunbeams pinning tree-shadows to the wall.
Two out of two boys don’t care.
…and i wouldn’t mind a shotgun funeral, actually, Gabe mumbles contentedly into the space between Joe’s shoulder and collarbone, voice hoarse from the smoke. it would be fine, as long as there’s dancing.
(fin.)
o1. OH MY GOD THIS TOOK FOREVER TO WRITE. which is why:
o2. sonstoodstammer will always be my safest place <3
o3. plainsong_x is clevercakes. with icing.
and callsigns is incredible math that always equals trohman!
o4. jenish is the best pocket shelterer a girl could ever ask for <
o5. _safi, angisageek, thegoldsky & clumsygyrl have big hearts for offering their help!
o6. i really want to give a prize to someone who can spot/diagram/map out all the repetition of images i used in this thing, it's loopy-crazy. (dancing! fairytale references! lines and patterns!) i need to learn how to write a straight-up proper linear story. next time i want to do a circular narrative, please punch me v. hard in the mouth.
o7. i don't think i'll be writing gabefic again anytime soon. i WANT to, but it's draining! and difficult!
but Spela, I hope you like this! ::loves on you:: :)
ETA~! o8. Thank you so much to _mydecember_ for the generous feature at her rec journal, letterbomb___! ♥
feedback is always repaid in full. xo