[bandom] FIC: it's like this, Cobra GSF, R
Title: it's like this
Pairing: VickyT/Boys (Cobra Starship GSF)
Rating: R
Summary: All things being considered, a little bit of intra-band fucking is hardly the strangest thing these guys have come up with.
Warnings: NOT NEARLY ENOUGH PORN. And by "not nearly enough," I mean "not any." Ugh, unacceptable. Tagging this as both "GSF" and "not-porn" is physically making my head hurt, tffs.
Notes: So once upon a time, I thought to myself, "Hey, self, let's write some Gabe/VickyT cunnilingus porn!" And then this came out instead. My brain, guys, I don't even know. Thank you to anoneknewmoose, who seriously read half of this thing by text message before it ever made it onto gdocs and did other ridiculous things like listening me to me read bits and pieces to her over the phone and going through the last section line by line to make sure it made sense; and to nasus221 and jewels667 for the final audiencing. And of course to floridapeaches, just because. ♥ 5500 words.
Oh, and Victoria, if you're reading this? Tell Alex that I still don't think he's the bitch. (Obviously, he and Ryland take turns. As you do.)
***
- victoria -
Victoria knows what people think of her.
She sees it in the speculative glances boys in crowds give her, the way their eyes linger on her skin after one of the guys touches her. She feels it in the jealous glances she gets from girls when Nate laughs at her jokes, when Ryland smiles at her, when Alex bumps her shoulder or Gabe talks her up on stage. They think that she's only in the band because she's sleeping with all of them, either separately or together.
And, well. If she weren't absolutely confident in her value to the group, in her abilities as a musician, that would probably make her angry, or at least hurt her feelings. Because she kind of is. Sleeping with them. Usually separately, together on certain special occasions-generally whenever it's been long enough that they've forgotten how awkward the arms-and-legs situation was the last time.
But it's not like that.
Really. It's not.
- gabe -
Ten minutes into her audition, Gabe says, "Okay, there is no fucking way you are not joining this band. And I'm not just saying that because there's no way we'll find anyone better on short notice."
Victoria laughs. Gabe doesn't.
The thing about Gabe-well, one thing among many, she supposes-is that you can tell how much he likes you by how obnoxious he's willing to let himself be around you. He's a gifted and habitual bullshitter, but once he decides that you're worth keeping around, he will always tell you exactly what he's thinking. It's like the filter between his brain and his mouth just disappears, like his ability to hide his enthusiasm or disdain for anything is suddenly out of order and the repairman won't be able to come out for at least a week. Like he's permanently drunk, even when he isn't.
And fuck if it isn't almost ridiculously endearing.
Early on, right after she joined the band, when she was still scrambling to master the music and learn the boys and not be obvious about how hard she was trying to make herself fit, Pete gifted them with some time at a practice space near the next day's venue. He assured them that he wasn't really expecting anything-which, good, because Victoria had been in the band for about ten minutes at that point, and she already knew how hard it was for the guys to take anything seriously at the best of times, much less on a day off from a busy, high-energy tour less than two weeks after some major keytarist-replacement drama.
Anyway.
They were all tuned up and plugged in, but mostly they were just fucking around; it was like nobody wanted to be the one to say, okay, how about we start with or from the top, guys, let's go. Nate was spinning back and forth on his stool, paying way more attention to his Sidekick than his kit; Gabe had Alex's bass; Alex was fiddling with Ryland's acoustic, even though his own was maybe ten feet away; and Ryland was dicking around on keyboard, picking out snatches of melody punctuated by arpeggios that would have sounded much better on a baby grand. Victoria shut her eyes, let her fingers idly wander the keys of her own instrument, weaving in and out of Ryland's little not-song and humming along.
She opened them, startled, when Gabe threw out a couple of notes that didn't quite fit, the cadence just far enough off of right that she pulled a sour face before she could help it.
Gabe laughed, easy and open. "Man, that is the hottest face I have ever seen in my life."
Victoria stuck her tongue out at him. "Maybe you should suck less, and then I won't have to make it."
"No, dude, really. Do it again, I want a picture." He dropped the neck of the bass, let it swing to the side so he could fumble in his pocket for his phone.
She let him pull her up against his side, sighing dramatically, and then made what she thought was the same face into Gabe's camera phone, rolling her eyes when he rested his chin on her shoulder and snapped the shot.
He laughed again, gleefully, as he showed her the picture. "Shit, yeah, that one's even better. That is, like, at least six cheesy pick-up lines worth of hot right there. Maybe seven."
"You're an idiot," Nate said, still busily jamming away at the keys on his phone. Ryland switched pedals on his keyboard and plunked out a decent bow chicka bow wow, which Alex thought was way funnier than it actually was.
And Gabe didn't move away; he stayed pressed against her side, his breath warm on her neck, while she rolled her eyes and told them all to shut up.
It didn't really surprise her when he pressed a wet kiss against her throat, just below the curve of her jaw, but she was surprised when he murmured in her ear, "I mean it, y'know. You're gorgeous." Then he stepped away, shrugged out of Alex's guitar, and said, "Hey, are we ready to make some music now, or what?"
That practice ended up being awesome, the music just working the way music sometimes does when you're very good or very lucky or both, and Victoria had a warm feeling in her stomach all night. At the time, she thought it was because of Gabe, because of his obvious interest, her body reacting instinctively to the sudden seeming probability that she'd soon be getting her hands on those shoulders and forearms and thighs (fuck, those thighs).
Now she realizes that it was because for the first time, she felt like part of the band.
And incidentally? They didn't sleep together. Not that night, and not for a long time afterward.
(Much later, when they're all lying in a tangle of sweaty legs and mussed hair and bitten-red mouths, she'll wonder out loud about it, and Alex will just smile against her shoulder and say, "It wasn't time." She'll roll her eyes and pinch his thigh, tell him she wasn't asking him, and Gabe will say that she wasn't really asking at all-that she already knew the answer.
Her boys, Jesus. Only Gabe could be fucking profound about something as simply convoluted as the five of them less than ninety seconds after coming his brains out.)
- alex -
Six shows after she joins them on Civic, in a moment that is (she thinks) perfectly innocent-just Victoria laughing at some stupid joke Alex is telling while the two of them clear their shit out of the dressing room; she doesn't even remember what it was, which means it can't have been that funny-Alex leans in and kisses her.
It's not something she would have known that she wanted, Suarez kissing her, or even something that she'd have asked for if she'd known; she knows now that she should probably tell him to stop.
And maybe it's the way his mouth curves up in a smile against hers, or the post-show adrenaline singing sweetly in her temples and wrists, or the sweat sticking her hair to the back of her neck, but she doesn't actually want him to stop. Which is why it's so difficult to put her hands on his shoulders and push him away, her hand coming up to touch her lips.
Her mouth tastes like Alex's tongue. She licks her lips, catches the taste of polycarbonate and cables and other people's guitar strings left there by her fingers, and says, "I'm not that girl."
Alex quirks a brow at her and pushes his glasses up his nose. "I know you're not," he says.
"Well, just so long as we're clear," she says, and hops up on the counter behind her, wraps her legs around his waist to pull him in.
"Perfectly," he breathes against her skin.
Then he kisses her neck, slipping a hand down the low neck of her top to cup her breast, and she figures it's time to stop thinking for a while.
Victoria is kind of ridiculously surprised by how weird things aren't, after. The band goes out to meet fans and sign shit, as usual; they go back to the bus with William and Butcher and get wasted, as usual; they fall into their bunks around four and sleep through most of the drive to the next city, also as usual. Everything is just normal.
She catches his wrist when they're heading in to soundcheck the next day, hanging back behind the others. "Why isn't this weird?" she asks.
Alex gives her a bemused look. "Did you want it to be, or something?"
"No, it's just-" She breaks off. She doesn't want it to be, but she was kind of expecting it to be, and now she feels a little out of her depth.
Seeing her frustration, Alex slings an arm around her shoulders and kisses her temple. "It's not weird because you're not that girl."
And, okay, that doesn't even make any sense. She opens her mouth to tell him so, but before she can say anything, Ryland calls, "If you guys don't hurry up, you won't have time to fuck around in the back before we go on," the sound drifting back to them from around the corner.
Her jaw drops. "You told him?" she demands, giving Alex an accusing look.
He shrugs. "Dude, he's been my best friend forever."
And, well, Victoria is familiar with that part of the Guy Code, not to mention Band Code, but that doesn't mean she has to like it. Her glare softens a little.
"Seriously, Suarez," Gabe hollers. "Bass players who are late to soundcheck don't get blowjobs after the show! I used to be one; I know these things!"
"You call that playing bass, Gabe?" Alex yells back, grinning.
"Shit, I still can't believe Rob called that a blowjob," Gabe answers, over the sound of Ryland and Nate both losing their shit laughing in the background.
Alex is laughing, too, smiling down at Victoria like he wants to make sure she got the joke. "So, you're a little late to the Cobra bandfucking party," he says, "but we don't mind if you don't."
She rolls her eyes heavenward, a long-suffering expression on her face. "You guys."
His smile changes, takes on a little bit of a secretive edge. "That is definitely, definitely what we are," he says, dropping his arm from her shoulder, crooking his elbow at his side instead. Offering her his arm.
Victoria loops her arm through his and lets him escort her to soundcheck, ignoring Gabe and Ryland's catcalling except for a dignified sniff.
- epiphany -
She doesn't realize that Alex wasn't joking until two days later, when she goes into the back lounge of the bus in search of her eyelash curler (she looked everywhere else and couldn't find the fucking thing, so that's where it has to be, Ry, and I don't care what they're doing because that thing is a fucking Tweezerman, okay, it's like the Cadillac of eyelash curlers) and happens upon Gabe with Nate's dick most of the way down his throat.
"Fuck!" Nate gasps, throwing his head back against the couch, his hips shifting rhythmically under Gabe's elegant hands.
"Oh," Victoria says, and steps back, shutting the door on Nate's kiss-bruised lips and muffled groans.
Alex and Ryland both look at her with faint apprehension when she sits back down in the kitchenette and curls her hands around the mostly-empty bottle of water she left on the counter.
"Vicky?" Alex says. He sounds anxious, like he's expecting her to freak out.
She looks at him. "You," she says slowly, "are an asshole."
"He gets that a lot," Ryland says, clearly trying to be helpful.
"Such an asshole," she repeats. She pauses for a long beat, watches them waiting to see what she's going to say, and then finishes, "And Nate is really quiet when he comes, huh?"
Alex blinks. "Those are...both true statements," he says.
"Delicious," Ryland adds, nodding.
Alex, who has yet to warm to the whole Guy Ripley schtick, says, "Oh, don't you start."
When Gabe and Nate rejoin them, looking distinctly disheveled-Gabe's hair is noticeably the worse for wear, which is pretty impressive considering that it's hidden under his hat, and Nate is sporting that dazed, happy expression peculiar to the recently well-fucked-they find Victoria sitting on Ryland's chest, clapping gleefully, as Alex threatens to have Ryland's fictional British alter-ego either deported or shot and punctuates his threats with some fairly merciless rib-tickling.
"Hate crime!" Ryland cries, squirming in a vain attempt to dislodge Victoria's weight. His accent is even more atrocious than usual, possibly because he can't breathe. "Ethnic violence! Gabe, Gabe, do tell William I love him; I fear I shan't make it out alive!"
"You guys are beating him up for being in love with William? Man, that's fucked up." Gabe cocks his head to the side, giving Alex a critical look. "Wait, I'm kind of in love with William. Am I next? Or is this, like, a miniature reign of terror of extremely limited scope? Inquiring minds, guys, come on."
All things being considered, a little bit of intra-band fucking is hardly the strangest thing these guys have come up with.
- ryland -
"Girlfriend," Ryland says apologetically the first time she tries to kiss him, turning his head away so her lips glance off his jaw instead.
Oh, shit. "Fuck, Ry, I'm sorry, I didn't-" Victoria takes a step back, awkwardly ducking out of his space, feeling like six kinds of idiot.
"No, no!" he says, stepping forward to follow her, catching her wrists in his hands. "It's okay, the band is okay, just. No kissing. That's the rule."
She blinks, impressed. "Your girlfriend is awesome, dude."
Ryland grins, moving one hand to rest on the curve of her hip. "I know."
- clarity -
Victoria expects Alex to give her the skinny, waits for him to do it, even, but it's actually Ryland-sweet, gentlemanly, innocent-looking Ryland, who fucks like a maniac and who has an understanding with his admittedly amazing girlfriend that allows him to screw around with his bandmates to his heart's content-who explains the whole thing to her. He comes outside with her when she ducks out the band entrance for a cigarette, jams his hands in his pockets and watches her smoke.
"So," she says, looking down at her fingers curled around her cigarette. "You and Alex."
"Off and on since we were kids."
"And Nate and Gabe."
He nods. "Since Nate moved to New York, back before we started working on the first record."
"Then, what, you just all decided that it would be a great idea to fall into bed together?"
Ryland laughs. "Well, Alex and Gabe hooked up a couple of times back when we were living next door to Rob, but the four of us-well." He shrugs lamely. "There were substances involved, but that doesn't really mean it was a bad idea."
"And by 'substances,' you mean Travis, right?"
He smirks. "Not for the orgy part."
"Oh," she says. Incredibly, she feels almost disappointed.
Alex pokes his head out the door, startling her. "Ry, Gabe's looking for you. The +44 tech wants to talk to you guys, for some reason," he says, nodding at Victoria in greeting.
She nods back, and then continues, "And where was Elisa during all of this? Not with Travie, was she?"
Ryland opens his mouth to answer, but it's Alex who speaks. "Elisa was that girl," he says simply. "You want to get dinner, Vicky? We've got time."
Victoria drops her cigarette, crushes it out with the toe of her Chuck Taylor. "Yeah, sure."
- nate -
There was once a glorious, blessed time when the words "day off" did not mean "go shopping with William Beckett," but that time is gone. Much like the time when "my band" didn't refer to the four head cases whose bunks are next to Victoria's on the bus.
She blames the heat. Fucking Warped Tour.
But she finds a pair of really sweet red pumps on sale, so it's not all bad, even if she does feel totally shopped out by the time they get to Macy's. Exhausted and clutching her shopping bag, she collapses in a boyfriend chair next to Nate, who is watching mournfully as Gabe forces Ryland into a fitting room to try on a pair of skinny pinstriped trousers, saying they'll make you look nine feet tall, Ry, it'll be awesome.
"Sometimes I think you guys just keep me around so you can feel tall," Nate grumbles.
Victoria snorts. "Yeah, because I'm such a giant next to the Beanpole Quads, here. Jesus, like any of them needs to look taller."
"You just bought shoes with four-inch heels, Vic. You wear those when we go out as a band and I'm going to look like I'm ten years old. Or a dwarf." He squints thoughtfully. "I'm really not sure which is worse."
"Aw, baby, you want to borrow my new kicks?" she says. "They're not your size, but we can probably stuff tissue paper in the toes."
"Oh, yeah, because wearing my keytar player's stilettos is so much more dignified than being the Token Short."
She laughs. "You should call Pete, see if the Sweet Little Dudes need a drummer."
"Or you could promise never to wear those shoes, and we could start our own gang. We could be, like, the Co-Ed Society of Cobras Whose Centers of Gravity Are Not Tall Enough to Ride Rollercoasters-"
"-The Fun Ones, Not That Goddamn Kiddie Shit. Hey, I kind of like the sound of that."
"That's because you suck at naming things, Victoria my love," Gabe says, suddenly appearing at her side. "Now come on, William wants sushi."
Nate kisses her like she's begging for it, mostly because he knows that if he does it for long enough, she will be.
Nasty Nate, nothing. Fucking Tease Nate is more like it.
And she will never, never tell him this, but Victoria actually likes that Nate is a little more...compact than the rest of the guys. Because for one, it makes bunk sex a viable option rather than a comedic proposition, and for another, when they're both fucked out and panting, he's just the right size to snuggle up to her side and lay his head on her breasts, his rapid breaths cool on her oversensitized skin. It makes her feel powerful, protective in a slightly maternal kind of way, as fucked up as that is.
But yeah, she can't ever tell him. The last thing he needs is another reason to feel like a ten-year-old.
- summertime -
Warped is actually incredibly predictable, the days falling into a regular pattern of show, barbeque, bus, daydreams about showering, Guitar Hero, sex, sleep. Rinse and repeat, as it were, except for the whole not being able to get a decent shower thing. On hotel nights, which are as always too few and far between, Victoria is so glad to have her own space that she pretty much just holes up in her room. She generally takes a bath and a shower, calls her friends in California, and goes to sleep too early.
"We missed you," Alex will say the next morning, wrapping an arm around her waist, easy.
"You did not," she'll scoff. "I could hear you all the way down the fucking hall."
Then Ryland will smirk, Gabe and Nate will stumble out of the elevator ten minutes late, and they'll be on the road again.
Nate will snuggle up against her side on the bus later, reading over her shoulder as she scribbles in the notebook she keeps around for lyrics.
Gabe will be Gabe, dorking it up with the guys, singing ridiculous songs in Spanish at the top of his lungs when Ryland is trying to sleep. Writing if he feels like it and drinking whether he feels like it or not. Ducking into the back lounge with Nate or Alex, if the music's not cooperating and he's not too drunk.
And Victoria will wonder why he hasn't touched her yet.
Well. It's not that he doesn't touch her; Gabe is one of the most ridiculously tactile people she's ever met. But Gabe's touching is...missing something, and it's nothing she'd have realized until she started sleeping with Ryland and Alex and Nate. There's affection and familiarity between her and Gabe, yeah, but the easy intimacy that she has with the other guys, that he has with the other guys? It's missing, and her awareness of its lack is a constant sore spot, like a bruise she can't stop poking.
"What's he waiting for?" she asks Ryland, on one occasion when Gabe has retired to the back lounge with both Nate and Alex.
"I have no idea," he answers. He leans into his guitar, picks out part of an Ivy League song, and then sighs and puts it down. "Goddamn, couldn't he have had the threesome on a day when Suarez and I weren't working?"
She doesn't bother to point out that he could have joined them and made it a foursome, because she knows that Ryland is way too polite to leave her in the front lounge by herself just so he can join in an orgy in the back. "I think you're laboring under the misapprehension that Gabe plans his sex life around This Is Ivy League's rehearsal schedule."
"I think you're laboring under the misapprehension that Gabe plans anything with regard to his sex life."
But, see, that's the thing; Victoria is pretty much certain that he does. And it bothers her way more than she wants to admit that he's failed thus far to pencil her in.
- gabe (reprise) -
During a show somewhere in Texas-she can't remember which one; it all kind of blurs together into four days of too hot too hot enchiladas for dinner too hot-Gabe calls her "the lovely Miss Victoria Asher."
"How hot is this girl, seriously?" he asks the crowd, and flashes a grin at her when they scream her name.
When they're coming off stage, she abruptly stops, turns around. Stops Gabe with a hand splayed on his chest, his t-shirt skin-warm and soaked with sweat under her fingers. "Why aren't we fucking?" she says.
He arches an eyebrow, says, "Because it's three million degrees out here and we just got done playing a show," and brushes past her, calling for William to wait up.
Motherfucker, she thinks.
She barely even sees him for the rest of the afternoon; they meet and greet for a few minutes after they change, but then The Academy are on, and afterwards William and Travie spirit Gabe away to Gym Class' bus for no-doubt nefarious purposes, the details of which neither Disashi nor Carden can tell her, although Sashi thinks they're probably not fucking.
"No, seriously, V," he says. "Last time I walked in on them, they were baked and playing fuckin' Yahtzee. That sound like foreplay to you?"
Privately, Victoria thinks that breathing is foreplay for those three, but she just shrugs and wanders off to the food tent with Butcher and Siska when Butcher announces that he's jonesing for potato wedges.
It's completely unreasonable for her to be in such a bad mood that even stealing deep-fried food from Butcher's plate can't cheer her up. It's even a hotel night, for Christ's sake; she has an actual shower and ten hours of precious solitude ahead to look forward to. It's just that she'd rather know what the fuck is going on with Gabe, but to figure that out she kind of needs the fucker around, not getting stoned, playing board games, and/or (she likes Sashi, but the guy's seriously rocking some massive denial) having ridiculously long-limbed sex with his two ridiculously long-limbed snuggle-buddies, or whatever the hell it is Bill and Travis are.
And great, now her head hurts.
Fucking Warped Tour.
Gabe doesn't even make it back to the bus to ride to the hotel with them; William calls Alex from Gabe's phone to say that he'll catch a ride with them, almost shouting over Gabe and Butcher singing something very loudly and very off-key in the background.
"Just another day with The Academy Is...," Alex sighs, killing the speakerphone.
Ryland looks upset that Guy Ripley is not there to report on The Butcher's repertoire of drinking songs, but he wisely doesn't say anything about it, after catching the stony look on Victoria's face.
Nate gives her a hopeful sidelong glance when they hand out keycards-they're used to Gabe pretty much belonging to William and Travis from the second they're done striking their equipment until late in the evening, but he usually doesn't fuck off on hotel nights-but she just touches his wrist, says, "Not tonight, babe," takes the elevator up to the fourth floor, and flops down on her single queen bed, listening to the not-quite-silence of the hotel moving around her.
Victoria hopes Alex and Ryland are letting Nate in with them. He doesn't enjoy being alone.
She doesn't particularly want to move, but she can't resist the siren song of the shower for long. God, how is this her life, that she's almost rapturously grateful for the chance to do something as simple as deep-conditioning her hair. Fucking Warped Tour-and she doesn't even care that she's totally a broken record with that. She will be so glad when the summer is over.
When she's braiding her wet hair to sleep, there's a knock on her door.
"Fuck off," she yells; the guys would have called her if they needed something, and she's not putting on pants for anybody else.
Her phone beeps cheerfully, and she opens the text message. It's from Travis, surprisingly.
dnt jst lv him in the hall v, invite him in alrdy
Shit. She swings her legs off the bed and almost trips on her way to the door.
Travie stands in the doorway, still in the process of stowing his phone in his pocket; Gabe is slouched against the opposite wall with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, looking like he'd be perfectly content to loiter there all night. His eyes are huge and dark, mostly pupil, so he's pretty fucked up, but it's Gabe and he's been hanging out with The Academy all night, so she'd be dumb to expect anything else.
"You brought me a Gabe," she says to Travis, leaning around the edge of the door, because she's still not wearing any pants.
"Yeah, sorry," he says. "Siska kicked him out, and William wants to keep drinking, so."
She revises her estimate of Gabe's level of intoxication to really fucked up. Her eyes meet Gabe's across the hallway. "Nate's down the hall," she says. "416, I think."
"We know; he's the one who told us where you were." Travie shrugs. "He wanted you."
Jesus. Heat blooms suddenly in Victoria's stomach, warming her thighs, the back of her neck. Her breath hitches.
Gabe rolls his eyes. "I'm wasted, Travie, not retarded. Stop talking about me like I'm not here." He pushes off the wall and crosses the hall, more or less steady on his feet, and weaves around both Travis and the door and tucks himself against Victoria's back. "And, hey, tell Sisky his mom sucks cock for quarters."
And just like that, her spike of arousal evaporates into annoyance. Victoria glares back at him over her shoulder. "Sure, Gabe, you can come in."
"Don't mind if I do," he says, his hand coming up to curve around her bare hip.
And just because it's what you do, she calls, "Thanks for bringing him back!" at Travis as he walks off down the hall, meandering back towards the elevators.
"Anytime," Travie replies, because that's also what you do.
Victoria shuts the door and just stands there for a second, hyper-aware of the heat of Gabe's body against her back, his breath on her shoulder, his fingers on her skin. And the fact that she's not wearing pants.
She closes her eyes. "What the fuck," she says. "Seriously. What the fuck."
"Did you not want to talk?" Gabe asks. "I could have sworn you wanted to talk."
"You don't want to talk; you want a drunksitter." She sidesteps around him and goes into the bathroom, takes one look at her hair in its half-done mess of a French braid, and sighs, reaching up to finger-comb it out so she can redo it.
"It's not like that, dude. Travis was just bullshitting." He leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms across his chest, and watches her in the mirror as she fiddles with her hair. "I finished Siska's tequila, and he booted me and told me not to come back until I got more, is what happened. You can't buy liquor in this stupid state after 9, did you know that? I always forget."
"I don't care about Texas' blue laws, Gabe."
"Neither do I; that's why I keep forgetting," he says, and pauses. "And just so you know? It's because you've never asked."
Victoria stops short, her fingers tangled in her hair, and turns to look at him. "That's it?"
He nods. "That's it." He bites his bottom lip, considering, and shifts his weight like he's going to take a step toward her.
By the time he'd get to the actual stepping part, she's already kissing him.
- denouement -
They're fifteen minutes late getting downstairs the next morning.
But it's okay, because Nate, Ryland, and Alex are just leaving their room when Victoria and Gabe are pressing the button for the elevator.
Alex says, "You're late," anyway, dropping a good-morning kiss on her cheek.
Victoria rolls her eyes, but she's smiling. "What can I say; he's good with his mouth."
"But you knew that already."
She looks fondly at Nate, who's been kissing Gabe like he wants to crawl inside him since the elevator doors slid shut, and says, "Yeah, I guess I did."
- fangs up -
This is how it is.
"No."
"Come on, guys, it'll be fun!"
"No."
"We made a rule, Gabe. And we're sticking to it."
"Hell of a time to start following rules, Suarez."
"Dude, it's bad enough that the back lounge pretty much permanently smells like come. We are not having an orgy in the front."
"Why can't we do it in the back lounge?"
"Stop enabling him, Nate. Nobody likes an enabler."
"I don't know what you're talking about; I love enablers."
"You would."
"Seriously, both of you shut up."
"Seriously, what's wrong with the back lounge?"
"Babe, the five of us barely fit back there when we're not trying to have sex."
"Yeah, think of the knee situation. Not all of us have the luxury of being pocket-sized."
"Okay, first? Fuck you. And second, it doesn't have to be particularly athletic sex, or anything."
"Ugh, quit pouting. That is not an attractive face."
"Know what would make him stop pouting? An orgy. Doesn't that sound like a great idea?"
"No, Gabriel."
"You guys are no fun at all. I should get a new band. One in favor of bus orgies."
"Christ. If I blow you, will you shut up about the bus orgy?"
"...I make no promises."
"That means yes, Vic."
"I know that, Ryland, Jesus. Alright, let's go."
"Guys."
"What, you want some, too?"
"No, I want you to take it to the fucking back lounge. Christ, am I the only one around who cares that our entire bus is going to smell like a whorehouse? Ry?"
"...I think he's busy, dude."
"Oh, for the love of-I hate you all. Just so you know."
"We know, Alex. Your objections have been-fuck, yeah, like that-duly noted."
"I'm going to go hang out in the back in protest."
"No, you're not; you're-"
"Hey! Dick to be sucked, here!"
"-going to get down here and fuck me. Shut up, Gabe."
"...yeah, okay."
"Good."
And it is.
***
Pairing: VickyT/Boys (Cobra Starship GSF)
Rating: R
Summary: All things being considered, a little bit of intra-band fucking is hardly the strangest thing these guys have come up with.
Warnings: NOT NEARLY ENOUGH PORN. And by "not nearly enough," I mean "not any." Ugh, unacceptable. Tagging this as both "GSF" and "not-porn" is physically making my head hurt, tffs.
Notes: So once upon a time, I thought to myself, "Hey, self, let's write some Gabe/VickyT cunnilingus porn!" And then this came out instead. My brain, guys, I don't even know. Thank you to anoneknewmoose, who seriously read half of this thing by text message before it ever made it onto gdocs and did other ridiculous things like listening me to me read bits and pieces to her over the phone and going through the last section line by line to make sure it made sense; and to nasus221 and jewels667 for the final audiencing. And of course to floridapeaches, just because. ♥ 5500 words.
Oh, and Victoria, if you're reading this? Tell Alex that I still don't think he's the bitch. (Obviously, he and Ryland take turns. As you do.)
***
- victoria -
Victoria knows what people think of her.
She sees it in the speculative glances boys in crowds give her, the way their eyes linger on her skin after one of the guys touches her. She feels it in the jealous glances she gets from girls when Nate laughs at her jokes, when Ryland smiles at her, when Alex bumps her shoulder or Gabe talks her up on stage. They think that she's only in the band because she's sleeping with all of them, either separately or together.
And, well. If she weren't absolutely confident in her value to the group, in her abilities as a musician, that would probably make her angry, or at least hurt her feelings. Because she kind of is. Sleeping with them. Usually separately, together on certain special occasions-generally whenever it's been long enough that they've forgotten how awkward the arms-and-legs situation was the last time.
But it's not like that.
Really. It's not.
- gabe -
Ten minutes into her audition, Gabe says, "Okay, there is no fucking way you are not joining this band. And I'm not just saying that because there's no way we'll find anyone better on short notice."
Victoria laughs. Gabe doesn't.
The thing about Gabe-well, one thing among many, she supposes-is that you can tell how much he likes you by how obnoxious he's willing to let himself be around you. He's a gifted and habitual bullshitter, but once he decides that you're worth keeping around, he will always tell you exactly what he's thinking. It's like the filter between his brain and his mouth just disappears, like his ability to hide his enthusiasm or disdain for anything is suddenly out of order and the repairman won't be able to come out for at least a week. Like he's permanently drunk, even when he isn't.
And fuck if it isn't almost ridiculously endearing.
Early on, right after she joined the band, when she was still scrambling to master the music and learn the boys and not be obvious about how hard she was trying to make herself fit, Pete gifted them with some time at a practice space near the next day's venue. He assured them that he wasn't really expecting anything-which, good, because Victoria had been in the band for about ten minutes at that point, and she already knew how hard it was for the guys to take anything seriously at the best of times, much less on a day off from a busy, high-energy tour less than two weeks after some major keytarist-replacement drama.
Anyway.
They were all tuned up and plugged in, but mostly they were just fucking around; it was like nobody wanted to be the one to say, okay, how about we start with or from the top, guys, let's go. Nate was spinning back and forth on his stool, paying way more attention to his Sidekick than his kit; Gabe had Alex's bass; Alex was fiddling with Ryland's acoustic, even though his own was maybe ten feet away; and Ryland was dicking around on keyboard, picking out snatches of melody punctuated by arpeggios that would have sounded much better on a baby grand. Victoria shut her eyes, let her fingers idly wander the keys of her own instrument, weaving in and out of Ryland's little not-song and humming along.
She opened them, startled, when Gabe threw out a couple of notes that didn't quite fit, the cadence just far enough off of right that she pulled a sour face before she could help it.
Gabe laughed, easy and open. "Man, that is the hottest face I have ever seen in my life."
Victoria stuck her tongue out at him. "Maybe you should suck less, and then I won't have to make it."
"No, dude, really. Do it again, I want a picture." He dropped the neck of the bass, let it swing to the side so he could fumble in his pocket for his phone.
She let him pull her up against his side, sighing dramatically, and then made what she thought was the same face into Gabe's camera phone, rolling her eyes when he rested his chin on her shoulder and snapped the shot.
He laughed again, gleefully, as he showed her the picture. "Shit, yeah, that one's even better. That is, like, at least six cheesy pick-up lines worth of hot right there. Maybe seven."
"You're an idiot," Nate said, still busily jamming away at the keys on his phone. Ryland switched pedals on his keyboard and plunked out a decent bow chicka bow wow, which Alex thought was way funnier than it actually was.
And Gabe didn't move away; he stayed pressed against her side, his breath warm on her neck, while she rolled her eyes and told them all to shut up.
It didn't really surprise her when he pressed a wet kiss against her throat, just below the curve of her jaw, but she was surprised when he murmured in her ear, "I mean it, y'know. You're gorgeous." Then he stepped away, shrugged out of Alex's guitar, and said, "Hey, are we ready to make some music now, or what?"
That practice ended up being awesome, the music just working the way music sometimes does when you're very good or very lucky or both, and Victoria had a warm feeling in her stomach all night. At the time, she thought it was because of Gabe, because of his obvious interest, her body reacting instinctively to the sudden seeming probability that she'd soon be getting her hands on those shoulders and forearms and thighs (fuck, those thighs).
Now she realizes that it was because for the first time, she felt like part of the band.
And incidentally? They didn't sleep together. Not that night, and not for a long time afterward.
(Much later, when they're all lying in a tangle of sweaty legs and mussed hair and bitten-red mouths, she'll wonder out loud about it, and Alex will just smile against her shoulder and say, "It wasn't time." She'll roll her eyes and pinch his thigh, tell him she wasn't asking him, and Gabe will say that she wasn't really asking at all-that she already knew the answer.
Her boys, Jesus. Only Gabe could be fucking profound about something as simply convoluted as the five of them less than ninety seconds after coming his brains out.)
- alex -
Six shows after she joins them on Civic, in a moment that is (she thinks) perfectly innocent-just Victoria laughing at some stupid joke Alex is telling while the two of them clear their shit out of the dressing room; she doesn't even remember what it was, which means it can't have been that funny-Alex leans in and kisses her.
It's not something she would have known that she wanted, Suarez kissing her, or even something that she'd have asked for if she'd known; she knows now that she should probably tell him to stop.
And maybe it's the way his mouth curves up in a smile against hers, or the post-show adrenaline singing sweetly in her temples and wrists, or the sweat sticking her hair to the back of her neck, but she doesn't actually want him to stop. Which is why it's so difficult to put her hands on his shoulders and push him away, her hand coming up to touch her lips.
Her mouth tastes like Alex's tongue. She licks her lips, catches the taste of polycarbonate and cables and other people's guitar strings left there by her fingers, and says, "I'm not that girl."
Alex quirks a brow at her and pushes his glasses up his nose. "I know you're not," he says.
"Well, just so long as we're clear," she says, and hops up on the counter behind her, wraps her legs around his waist to pull him in.
"Perfectly," he breathes against her skin.
Then he kisses her neck, slipping a hand down the low neck of her top to cup her breast, and she figures it's time to stop thinking for a while.
Victoria is kind of ridiculously surprised by how weird things aren't, after. The band goes out to meet fans and sign shit, as usual; they go back to the bus with William and Butcher and get wasted, as usual; they fall into their bunks around four and sleep through most of the drive to the next city, also as usual. Everything is just normal.
She catches his wrist when they're heading in to soundcheck the next day, hanging back behind the others. "Why isn't this weird?" she asks.
Alex gives her a bemused look. "Did you want it to be, or something?"
"No, it's just-" She breaks off. She doesn't want it to be, but she was kind of expecting it to be, and now she feels a little out of her depth.
Seeing her frustration, Alex slings an arm around her shoulders and kisses her temple. "It's not weird because you're not that girl."
And, okay, that doesn't even make any sense. She opens her mouth to tell him so, but before she can say anything, Ryland calls, "If you guys don't hurry up, you won't have time to fuck around in the back before we go on," the sound drifting back to them from around the corner.
Her jaw drops. "You told him?" she demands, giving Alex an accusing look.
He shrugs. "Dude, he's been my best friend forever."
And, well, Victoria is familiar with that part of the Guy Code, not to mention Band Code, but that doesn't mean she has to like it. Her glare softens a little.
"Seriously, Suarez," Gabe hollers. "Bass players who are late to soundcheck don't get blowjobs after the show! I used to be one; I know these things!"
"You call that playing bass, Gabe?" Alex yells back, grinning.
"Shit, I still can't believe Rob called that a blowjob," Gabe answers, over the sound of Ryland and Nate both losing their shit laughing in the background.
Alex is laughing, too, smiling down at Victoria like he wants to make sure she got the joke. "So, you're a little late to the Cobra bandfucking party," he says, "but we don't mind if you don't."
She rolls her eyes heavenward, a long-suffering expression on her face. "You guys."
His smile changes, takes on a little bit of a secretive edge. "That is definitely, definitely what we are," he says, dropping his arm from her shoulder, crooking his elbow at his side instead. Offering her his arm.
Victoria loops her arm through his and lets him escort her to soundcheck, ignoring Gabe and Ryland's catcalling except for a dignified sniff.
- epiphany -
She doesn't realize that Alex wasn't joking until two days later, when she goes into the back lounge of the bus in search of her eyelash curler (she looked everywhere else and couldn't find the fucking thing, so that's where it has to be, Ry, and I don't care what they're doing because that thing is a fucking Tweezerman, okay, it's like the Cadillac of eyelash curlers) and happens upon Gabe with Nate's dick most of the way down his throat.
"Fuck!" Nate gasps, throwing his head back against the couch, his hips shifting rhythmically under Gabe's elegant hands.
"Oh," Victoria says, and steps back, shutting the door on Nate's kiss-bruised lips and muffled groans.
Alex and Ryland both look at her with faint apprehension when she sits back down in the kitchenette and curls her hands around the mostly-empty bottle of water she left on the counter.
"Vicky?" Alex says. He sounds anxious, like he's expecting her to freak out.
She looks at him. "You," she says slowly, "are an asshole."
"He gets that a lot," Ryland says, clearly trying to be helpful.
"Such an asshole," she repeats. She pauses for a long beat, watches them waiting to see what she's going to say, and then finishes, "And Nate is really quiet when he comes, huh?"
Alex blinks. "Those are...both true statements," he says.
"Delicious," Ryland adds, nodding.
Alex, who has yet to warm to the whole Guy Ripley schtick, says, "Oh, don't you start."
When Gabe and Nate rejoin them, looking distinctly disheveled-Gabe's hair is noticeably the worse for wear, which is pretty impressive considering that it's hidden under his hat, and Nate is sporting that dazed, happy expression peculiar to the recently well-fucked-they find Victoria sitting on Ryland's chest, clapping gleefully, as Alex threatens to have Ryland's fictional British alter-ego either deported or shot and punctuates his threats with some fairly merciless rib-tickling.
"Hate crime!" Ryland cries, squirming in a vain attempt to dislodge Victoria's weight. His accent is even more atrocious than usual, possibly because he can't breathe. "Ethnic violence! Gabe, Gabe, do tell William I love him; I fear I shan't make it out alive!"
"You guys are beating him up for being in love with William? Man, that's fucked up." Gabe cocks his head to the side, giving Alex a critical look. "Wait, I'm kind of in love with William. Am I next? Or is this, like, a miniature reign of terror of extremely limited scope? Inquiring minds, guys, come on."
All things being considered, a little bit of intra-band fucking is hardly the strangest thing these guys have come up with.
- ryland -
"Girlfriend," Ryland says apologetically the first time she tries to kiss him, turning his head away so her lips glance off his jaw instead.
Oh, shit. "Fuck, Ry, I'm sorry, I didn't-" Victoria takes a step back, awkwardly ducking out of his space, feeling like six kinds of idiot.
"No, no!" he says, stepping forward to follow her, catching her wrists in his hands. "It's okay, the band is okay, just. No kissing. That's the rule."
She blinks, impressed. "Your girlfriend is awesome, dude."
Ryland grins, moving one hand to rest on the curve of her hip. "I know."
- clarity -
Victoria expects Alex to give her the skinny, waits for him to do it, even, but it's actually Ryland-sweet, gentlemanly, innocent-looking Ryland, who fucks like a maniac and who has an understanding with his admittedly amazing girlfriend that allows him to screw around with his bandmates to his heart's content-who explains the whole thing to her. He comes outside with her when she ducks out the band entrance for a cigarette, jams his hands in his pockets and watches her smoke.
"So," she says, looking down at her fingers curled around her cigarette. "You and Alex."
"Off and on since we were kids."
"And Nate and Gabe."
He nods. "Since Nate moved to New York, back before we started working on the first record."
"Then, what, you just all decided that it would be a great idea to fall into bed together?"
Ryland laughs. "Well, Alex and Gabe hooked up a couple of times back when we were living next door to Rob, but the four of us-well." He shrugs lamely. "There were substances involved, but that doesn't really mean it was a bad idea."
"And by 'substances,' you mean Travis, right?"
He smirks. "Not for the orgy part."
"Oh," she says. Incredibly, she feels almost disappointed.
Alex pokes his head out the door, startling her. "Ry, Gabe's looking for you. The +44 tech wants to talk to you guys, for some reason," he says, nodding at Victoria in greeting.
She nods back, and then continues, "And where was Elisa during all of this? Not with Travie, was she?"
Ryland opens his mouth to answer, but it's Alex who speaks. "Elisa was that girl," he says simply. "You want to get dinner, Vicky? We've got time."
Victoria drops her cigarette, crushes it out with the toe of her Chuck Taylor. "Yeah, sure."
- nate -
There was once a glorious, blessed time when the words "day off" did not mean "go shopping with William Beckett," but that time is gone. Much like the time when "my band" didn't refer to the four head cases whose bunks are next to Victoria's on the bus.
She blames the heat. Fucking Warped Tour.
But she finds a pair of really sweet red pumps on sale, so it's not all bad, even if she does feel totally shopped out by the time they get to Macy's. Exhausted and clutching her shopping bag, she collapses in a boyfriend chair next to Nate, who is watching mournfully as Gabe forces Ryland into a fitting room to try on a pair of skinny pinstriped trousers, saying they'll make you look nine feet tall, Ry, it'll be awesome.
"Sometimes I think you guys just keep me around so you can feel tall," Nate grumbles.
Victoria snorts. "Yeah, because I'm such a giant next to the Beanpole Quads, here. Jesus, like any of them needs to look taller."
"You just bought shoes with four-inch heels, Vic. You wear those when we go out as a band and I'm going to look like I'm ten years old. Or a dwarf." He squints thoughtfully. "I'm really not sure which is worse."
"Aw, baby, you want to borrow my new kicks?" she says. "They're not your size, but we can probably stuff tissue paper in the toes."
"Oh, yeah, because wearing my keytar player's stilettos is so much more dignified than being the Token Short."
She laughs. "You should call Pete, see if the Sweet Little Dudes need a drummer."
"Or you could promise never to wear those shoes, and we could start our own gang. We could be, like, the Co-Ed Society of Cobras Whose Centers of Gravity Are Not Tall Enough to Ride Rollercoasters-"
"-The Fun Ones, Not That Goddamn Kiddie Shit. Hey, I kind of like the sound of that."
"That's because you suck at naming things, Victoria my love," Gabe says, suddenly appearing at her side. "Now come on, William wants sushi."
Nate kisses her like she's begging for it, mostly because he knows that if he does it for long enough, she will be.
Nasty Nate, nothing. Fucking Tease Nate is more like it.
And she will never, never tell him this, but Victoria actually likes that Nate is a little more...compact than the rest of the guys. Because for one, it makes bunk sex a viable option rather than a comedic proposition, and for another, when they're both fucked out and panting, he's just the right size to snuggle up to her side and lay his head on her breasts, his rapid breaths cool on her oversensitized skin. It makes her feel powerful, protective in a slightly maternal kind of way, as fucked up as that is.
But yeah, she can't ever tell him. The last thing he needs is another reason to feel like a ten-year-old.
- summertime -
Warped is actually incredibly predictable, the days falling into a regular pattern of show, barbeque, bus, daydreams about showering, Guitar Hero, sex, sleep. Rinse and repeat, as it were, except for the whole not being able to get a decent shower thing. On hotel nights, which are as always too few and far between, Victoria is so glad to have her own space that she pretty much just holes up in her room. She generally takes a bath and a shower, calls her friends in California, and goes to sleep too early.
"We missed you," Alex will say the next morning, wrapping an arm around her waist, easy.
"You did not," she'll scoff. "I could hear you all the way down the fucking hall."
Then Ryland will smirk, Gabe and Nate will stumble out of the elevator ten minutes late, and they'll be on the road again.
Nate will snuggle up against her side on the bus later, reading over her shoulder as she scribbles in the notebook she keeps around for lyrics.
Gabe will be Gabe, dorking it up with the guys, singing ridiculous songs in Spanish at the top of his lungs when Ryland is trying to sleep. Writing if he feels like it and drinking whether he feels like it or not. Ducking into the back lounge with Nate or Alex, if the music's not cooperating and he's not too drunk.
And Victoria will wonder why he hasn't touched her yet.
Well. It's not that he doesn't touch her; Gabe is one of the most ridiculously tactile people she's ever met. But Gabe's touching is...missing something, and it's nothing she'd have realized until she started sleeping with Ryland and Alex and Nate. There's affection and familiarity between her and Gabe, yeah, but the easy intimacy that she has with the other guys, that he has with the other guys? It's missing, and her awareness of its lack is a constant sore spot, like a bruise she can't stop poking.
"What's he waiting for?" she asks Ryland, on one occasion when Gabe has retired to the back lounge with both Nate and Alex.
"I have no idea," he answers. He leans into his guitar, picks out part of an Ivy League song, and then sighs and puts it down. "Goddamn, couldn't he have had the threesome on a day when Suarez and I weren't working?"
She doesn't bother to point out that he could have joined them and made it a foursome, because she knows that Ryland is way too polite to leave her in the front lounge by herself just so he can join in an orgy in the back. "I think you're laboring under the misapprehension that Gabe plans his sex life around This Is Ivy League's rehearsal schedule."
"I think you're laboring under the misapprehension that Gabe plans anything with regard to his sex life."
But, see, that's the thing; Victoria is pretty much certain that he does. And it bothers her way more than she wants to admit that he's failed thus far to pencil her in.
- gabe (reprise) -
During a show somewhere in Texas-she can't remember which one; it all kind of blurs together into four days of too hot too hot enchiladas for dinner too hot-Gabe calls her "the lovely Miss Victoria Asher."
"How hot is this girl, seriously?" he asks the crowd, and flashes a grin at her when they scream her name.
When they're coming off stage, she abruptly stops, turns around. Stops Gabe with a hand splayed on his chest, his t-shirt skin-warm and soaked with sweat under her fingers. "Why aren't we fucking?" she says.
He arches an eyebrow, says, "Because it's three million degrees out here and we just got done playing a show," and brushes past her, calling for William to wait up.
Motherfucker, she thinks.
She barely even sees him for the rest of the afternoon; they meet and greet for a few minutes after they change, but then The Academy are on, and afterwards William and Travie spirit Gabe away to Gym Class' bus for no-doubt nefarious purposes, the details of which neither Disashi nor Carden can tell her, although Sashi thinks they're probably not fucking.
"No, seriously, V," he says. "Last time I walked in on them, they were baked and playing fuckin' Yahtzee. That sound like foreplay to you?"
Privately, Victoria thinks that breathing is foreplay for those three, but she just shrugs and wanders off to the food tent with Butcher and Siska when Butcher announces that he's jonesing for potato wedges.
It's completely unreasonable for her to be in such a bad mood that even stealing deep-fried food from Butcher's plate can't cheer her up. It's even a hotel night, for Christ's sake; she has an actual shower and ten hours of precious solitude ahead to look forward to. It's just that she'd rather know what the fuck is going on with Gabe, but to figure that out she kind of needs the fucker around, not getting stoned, playing board games, and/or (she likes Sashi, but the guy's seriously rocking some massive denial) having ridiculously long-limbed sex with his two ridiculously long-limbed snuggle-buddies, or whatever the hell it is Bill and Travis are.
And great, now her head hurts.
Fucking Warped Tour.
Gabe doesn't even make it back to the bus to ride to the hotel with them; William calls Alex from Gabe's phone to say that he'll catch a ride with them, almost shouting over Gabe and Butcher singing something very loudly and very off-key in the background.
"Just another day with The Academy Is...," Alex sighs, killing the speakerphone.
Ryland looks upset that Guy Ripley is not there to report on The Butcher's repertoire of drinking songs, but he wisely doesn't say anything about it, after catching the stony look on Victoria's face.
Nate gives her a hopeful sidelong glance when they hand out keycards-they're used to Gabe pretty much belonging to William and Travis from the second they're done striking their equipment until late in the evening, but he usually doesn't fuck off on hotel nights-but she just touches his wrist, says, "Not tonight, babe," takes the elevator up to the fourth floor, and flops down on her single queen bed, listening to the not-quite-silence of the hotel moving around her.
Victoria hopes Alex and Ryland are letting Nate in with them. He doesn't enjoy being alone.
She doesn't particularly want to move, but she can't resist the siren song of the shower for long. God, how is this her life, that she's almost rapturously grateful for the chance to do something as simple as deep-conditioning her hair. Fucking Warped Tour-and she doesn't even care that she's totally a broken record with that. She will be so glad when the summer is over.
When she's braiding her wet hair to sleep, there's a knock on her door.
"Fuck off," she yells; the guys would have called her if they needed something, and she's not putting on pants for anybody else.
Her phone beeps cheerfully, and she opens the text message. It's from Travis, surprisingly.
dnt jst lv him in the hall v, invite him in alrdy
Shit. She swings her legs off the bed and almost trips on her way to the door.
Travie stands in the doorway, still in the process of stowing his phone in his pocket; Gabe is slouched against the opposite wall with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, looking like he'd be perfectly content to loiter there all night. His eyes are huge and dark, mostly pupil, so he's pretty fucked up, but it's Gabe and he's been hanging out with The Academy all night, so she'd be dumb to expect anything else.
"You brought me a Gabe," she says to Travis, leaning around the edge of the door, because she's still not wearing any pants.
"Yeah, sorry," he says. "Siska kicked him out, and William wants to keep drinking, so."
She revises her estimate of Gabe's level of intoxication to really fucked up. Her eyes meet Gabe's across the hallway. "Nate's down the hall," she says. "416, I think."
"We know; he's the one who told us where you were." Travie shrugs. "He wanted you."
Jesus. Heat blooms suddenly in Victoria's stomach, warming her thighs, the back of her neck. Her breath hitches.
Gabe rolls his eyes. "I'm wasted, Travie, not retarded. Stop talking about me like I'm not here." He pushes off the wall and crosses the hall, more or less steady on his feet, and weaves around both Travis and the door and tucks himself against Victoria's back. "And, hey, tell Sisky his mom sucks cock for quarters."
And just like that, her spike of arousal evaporates into annoyance. Victoria glares back at him over her shoulder. "Sure, Gabe, you can come in."
"Don't mind if I do," he says, his hand coming up to curve around her bare hip.
And just because it's what you do, she calls, "Thanks for bringing him back!" at Travis as he walks off down the hall, meandering back towards the elevators.
"Anytime," Travie replies, because that's also what you do.
Victoria shuts the door and just stands there for a second, hyper-aware of the heat of Gabe's body against her back, his breath on her shoulder, his fingers on her skin. And the fact that she's not wearing pants.
She closes her eyes. "What the fuck," she says. "Seriously. What the fuck."
"Did you not want to talk?" Gabe asks. "I could have sworn you wanted to talk."
"You don't want to talk; you want a drunksitter." She sidesteps around him and goes into the bathroom, takes one look at her hair in its half-done mess of a French braid, and sighs, reaching up to finger-comb it out so she can redo it.
"It's not like that, dude. Travis was just bullshitting." He leans against the doorframe, crossing his arms across his chest, and watches her in the mirror as she fiddles with her hair. "I finished Siska's tequila, and he booted me and told me not to come back until I got more, is what happened. You can't buy liquor in this stupid state after 9, did you know that? I always forget."
"I don't care about Texas' blue laws, Gabe."
"Neither do I; that's why I keep forgetting," he says, and pauses. "And just so you know? It's because you've never asked."
Victoria stops short, her fingers tangled in her hair, and turns to look at him. "That's it?"
He nods. "That's it." He bites his bottom lip, considering, and shifts his weight like he's going to take a step toward her.
By the time he'd get to the actual stepping part, she's already kissing him.
- denouement -
They're fifteen minutes late getting downstairs the next morning.
But it's okay, because Nate, Ryland, and Alex are just leaving their room when Victoria and Gabe are pressing the button for the elevator.
Alex says, "You're late," anyway, dropping a good-morning kiss on her cheek.
Victoria rolls her eyes, but she's smiling. "What can I say; he's good with his mouth."
"But you knew that already."
She looks fondly at Nate, who's been kissing Gabe like he wants to crawl inside him since the elevator doors slid shut, and says, "Yeah, I guess I did."
- fangs up -
This is how it is.
"No."
"Come on, guys, it'll be fun!"
"No."
"We made a rule, Gabe. And we're sticking to it."
"Hell of a time to start following rules, Suarez."
"Dude, it's bad enough that the back lounge pretty much permanently smells like come. We are not having an orgy in the front."
"Why can't we do it in the back lounge?"
"Stop enabling him, Nate. Nobody likes an enabler."
"I don't know what you're talking about; I love enablers."
"You would."
"Seriously, both of you shut up."
"Seriously, what's wrong with the back lounge?"
"Babe, the five of us barely fit back there when we're not trying to have sex."
"Yeah, think of the knee situation. Not all of us have the luxury of being pocket-sized."
"Okay, first? Fuck you. And second, it doesn't have to be particularly athletic sex, or anything."
"Ugh, quit pouting. That is not an attractive face."
"Know what would make him stop pouting? An orgy. Doesn't that sound like a great idea?"
"No, Gabriel."
"You guys are no fun at all. I should get a new band. One in favor of bus orgies."
"Christ. If I blow you, will you shut up about the bus orgy?"
"...I make no promises."
"That means yes, Vic."
"I know that, Ryland, Jesus. Alright, let's go."
"Guys."
"What, you want some, too?"
"No, I want you to take it to the fucking back lounge. Christ, am I the only one around who cares that our entire bus is going to smell like a whorehouse? Ry?"
"...I think he's busy, dude."
"Oh, for the love of-I hate you all. Just so you know."
"We know, Alex. Your objections have been-fuck, yeah, like that-duly noted."
"I'm going to go hang out in the back in protest."
"No, you're not; you're-"
"Hey! Dick to be sucked, here!"
"-going to get down here and fuck me. Shut up, Gabe."
"...yeah, okay."
"Good."
And it is.
***