#gabriush

~~~

“Hey, babe? What’re you doing tonight?” Dariush calls out from Gabriel’s bed, having seen something interesting while browsing Twitter.

“Uh, just studying, I guess. What’s up?” Gabriel calls back from the ensuite bathroom.

“That new apocalypse flick came out. We should peep it. I bet we’ll be the only ones in the theatre that know what a real alien looks like. We can make fun of their lame-ass CGI renders,” Dariush responds with mischief in his voice.

Gabriel walks into the room then, jeans slung low on his hips and and rubbing a towel into his hair. “That sounds awesome,” he says with a grin. “Alex would love that.”

Dariush throws his arms down on the bed in indignance, immediately picking up on Gabriel’s subtext. “No way, man!  We haven’t had a date alone in weeks. I’m not gonna let Annie the Orphan crash another one.”

Gabriel sighs. This is not the first time they’ve had this conversation. “For the last time, Alex needs us,” he says in a tired voice. “He’s been a wreck since he and ZhenZhen split. We have to be there for him.”

As his boyfriend speaks, Dariush feels a sting in his chest that he isn’t willing to look into right now. “Ugh, I’m outta here,” Dariush announces as he gets out of bed. “Text me when you want to kiss your boyfriend’s ass instead of someone else’s.”

“Wait a second! Dare, where are you going?” Gabriel grabs Dariush’s hand before he could make it too far and forces Dariush to face him.

Dariush looks ready to deck him, and Gabriel is about to release him to block the shot when Dariush shouts, “Look me in the eye, and tell me you’re not still in love with Alex!”

Gabriel drops his hand in shock. “What? I was never in love with Alex. I love you,” he emphasises.

“You sure about that? All I know is that from Day 1 you were into him, and I don’t know that you ever stopped,” Dariush retaliates.

“Dariush, you’re being paranoid,” Gabriel beseeches.

“You are always protecting him!” Dariush roars over Gabriel’s pitiful rebuttals. “Back then, it was making us leave our safe hiding spots to make sure he was okay; now it’s taking him along on our dates to get his mind off Zhen. Alex is a grown-ass kid in the best fucking college in the country; he doesn’t need a guardian angel.”

“Well, I am named Gabriel,” Gabriel jokes in an attempt to lighten the mood.

It doesn’t work, and Gabriel has to physically move himself between Dariush and the door to prevent his boyfriend from walking out on him. “Wait! Sorry, sorry,” he pleads. “Come on, sit down. I’m sorry.”

Gabriel leads him back to the bed, and Dariush does not resist. He tugs on Dariush’s hand as he falls down onto the bed, and Dariush slots into Gabriel’s side. As he talks, Gabriel comfortingly rubs his hand up and down Dariush’s back.

“Did I tell you that when we first met, I had just learned what it meant to be bi?” Gabriel starts.

“What do you mean?” Dariush asks as he tilts his head upward to get a better look at his boyfriend.

“In juvie,” Gabriel clarifies. “They called my bunkmate ‘Dixie Chicks.’ I thought it was cause he liked country or some shit, but someone else told me the real story. They found out he was bisexual and started calling him ‘Dicks and Chicks.’ It shortened down to Dixie Chicks over time, I guess.”

Silence is admittedly not one of Dariush’s strong suits; but after years of being with or around Gabriel, he knows when to give Gabriel the space to talk.

“I didn’t know there was a word for how I felt, and then everything made sense. Things I ignored about myself finally came to the forefront of my mind, and I wasn’t afraid of myself anymore. I wasn’t afraid of anything anymore. That’s how I got the balls to even escape in the first place.”

Gabriel’s hand stilled as he spoke, but he returns to his motions when he comes back to more familiar territory. “I’m not gonna deny that I took an instant liking to Alex,” he muses. “He wasn’t the fucker dangling some poor kid off a cliff, after all.”

“It was exposure therapy!” Dariush once again defends. “And we weren’t even that close to the edge!”

“But I was never in love with him,” Gabriel finishes. He turns and shimmies down the bed to face Dariush. “I promise, I’m just trying to be a good friend. Whenever you and I would break up, he wouldn’t judge me or us; and he’d let me hang out at his place so that I wouldn’t feel alone, even if he was working on some big project for school. I bet if you ever bothered to rely on him, he’d have been there for you, too.”

Dariush knows himself enough to know that he might never trust Alex wherever Gabriel was concerned--even with his own Gabriel-fueled heartbreak--but Dariush is mollified that Gabriel wasn’t secretly pining away for the young genius. He pecks Gabriel on the lips. “Fine, okay. Let’s go rescue Poindexter. If we leave him alone for too long, he’d find a way to turn his DNA into bi-canary code.”

Gabriel laughs, deep and fond, hugs his boyfriend to his chest, and rolls them both right off the bed.