#ofta

"'M not," he said, because even though it felt like there were times that Lindsay could read him like a book he couldn't help but be contrary.

She glared at him, an impressive feat at the current hour. "I know what today is," she said, "and I know why you're nervous, but don't lie to me about it."

"I'm not nervous, just can't sleep, what's your excuse."

"Gavin, it's been two years."

"Has it?" Gavin asked. Maybe if he just pretended he didn't know what she was talking about Lindsay would just roll over and go back to sleep. Gavin could get out of their oversized bed and pretend like this wasn't a day he'd been thinking and worrying about for the last week - the last month, the last year - and he could leave his sleeping bondmates where they were.

Lindsay looked back at him, unimpressed by his attempts at evading, "You know it has, c'mon Gav, think back I know you remember how it felt that night. There's nothing for you to be worried about.”

He did remember. If Gavin had a list of the most stressful moments of his life then that night would have been near the top.

Even Michael's arm around his waist hadn't been enough to completely ease Gavin's nerves that night. His heart had felt like it was about to leap from his chest when Meg had walked through the door and turned on the three of them and asked, "So which one of you is going to explain what the hell is going on?"

Gavin had done his best to swallow around the lump in his throat while Michael had rolled his eyes. "I told you he wouldn't fucking say anything," he had said, before he'd turned to Lindsay, "this is exactly what would have happened if we'd gone with your plan."

"Explanation," Meg had repeated.

Michael had been the one to explain what was happening. He was the one who had the most experience giving this speech. He had given it to Lindsay twice, drunkenly the first time and then the next morning when they had all been nursing their hangovers they had talked about it again. It had still been clear when he had explained to Meg that he had been going over this in his head for a while. There was a practiced smoothness to his words that Gavin had never attributed to Michael before. When he had finished his speech they had sat in silence as Meg had processed all the information that Michael had thrown at her.

"Guess that explains why it felt like my stop came so late," she had said.

Meg had smiled and, even though Gavin had thought he could still see some doubt in her eyes, she had said, "It did feel like there was a connection when we met the first time, it wouldn't hurt to try it again with everyone here this time."

The silence had felt deafening when Meg had let Lindsay take her hand, had let Michael place his hand on her shoulder, and Gavin had put his hand on her knee. The bond had hit him like a truck and Meg had been with them since.

Meg had fit with them perfectly she was like their missing piece, Gavin said as much to Lindsay.

Lindsay shook her head, careful not to wake up Meg when she moved, "That's not the point, I'm making Gavin. What did it feel like?"

"It felt like bonding Lindsay. Same as with you, same as with Michael. It was like finding the part of us that was missing.”

Lindsay jabbed a finger into his side, her way of punishing him for saying something stupid without thinking like she wanted him to. "No, c'mon, you know better than that. You remember how I didn't move in with you and Michael right away?"

Gavin nodded, of course he did, he'd only spent hours wondering if it had been because Lindsay didn't actually want to be with them - and even more time tagging along with Michael as he tried to trick Lindsay into living in the chaos that was their house. "Do you remember why I didn't?"

That part was a little more difficult, that had been years ago and he'd been more worried about what he had thought was the heart of the issue. She sighed when she realized that he didn't have a clue. "Gavin, how long have you been thinking about your fated and how they were the person that was going to fix you? Your whole damn life, right, centuries. I can't blame you for it, it's like the way our whole world functions now, but you gotta know how toxic that is for you." Lindsay was on a roll now, quietly continuing her speech so she didn't wake up Meg and Michael. "I know I don't really have the room to talk about feeling wrong for stopping, since I stopped when we all think you're supposed to. But there's nothing wrong with you."

"I know, Lindsay," he said, if she had a point it was lost on him.

"No you don't," she said, "you're freaked out because you're worried you're still not whole, like you're going to stop again today just like you did with Michael and just like you did with me."

"Am I not allowed to be afraid of that," he asked, his voice never went above a whisper but it had bite.

"You can be afraid of whatever you damn want, but you can't keep thinking about us like we're here to fill some missing piece in you that's not what your fated are for."

"Then what's the point of having a bloody fated at all then. What good is a soulmate if they aren't your other half?"

"That's the point, Gav," Lindsay said, she was clearly pleading with him to hear what she was trying to say. "There is no other half, cause you're already whole. Your fated isn't there to complete you, they're there to compliment you.”

Gavin wondered if he should say something but Lindsay wasn’t done. “You’re freaking out because, what? It didn’t feel complete when we bonded with Meg. That’s cause Michael isn’t your passion, Meg isn’t your courage, I’m not your whatever. This isn’t the Wizard of Oz, destiny isn’t handing out soulmates like some old man handing out organs.” Lindsay rolled closer to him and grabbed hold of his face, pulling him down so he was looking her in the eye. “You’re freaking out for no reason,” she said, slowly like if she did he might absorb the message she was trying share with him.

“Maybe you’re not freaking out for no reason,” Gavin countered.

She pulled him down lower, wiggling so she could get closer to his face, and pressed their foreheads together so he had to look her in the eye. They stopped moving when they heard a sleepy sigh from behind Lindsay, then the sounds of blankets shuffling as Meg rolled over to cuddle with Michael after Lindsay's moving disturbed her. It was reminder enough that they weren't alone, and Lindsay made her voice even softer as she said, "Think about it again, tell me it didn't feel different when you were with us and you closed that bond with Meg."

Gavin did what she said. He thought back to the four of them together, tried to ignore what that suffocating anxiety had felt like - and the tinges of bittersweet smugness he had already been able to feel at the thought of Michael being wrong and this not working - so he could remember what it had felt like for them all to be together. Meg had sat down on the couch, the sudden burst of information too much, and Lindsay had sat beside her and took a hand. Then Michael, with his arm still around Gavin, had come up and put his other hand on her shoulder. Leaving Gavin to finish the loop, it had come down to him to prove once and for all if Meg was really the one they had been waiting on, and he had place a hand on her knee with a feeling of finality settling in his gut.

Gavin knew what it felt like to start again, but seeing the breath punched from Meg as she felt it for the first time had been a new experience. The way she had looked like she couldn't believe this was finally happening, the way her eyes had shined with excitement and unshed tears. The grip of Michael's arm around his waist had tightened and had pulled Gavin even closer to his side and Lindsay had looked radiant with the smile stretched across her face.

And that feeling in Gavin's gut had only settled in further.

"Oh," Gavin said, barely more than an exhale but Lindsay was so close even if she couldn't hear it she could probably feel it against her face.

"It didn't feel like completion, it felt final," she said, proving once again that she could read Gavin's mind. "So are you done worrying that the universe is going to shank you in a dark alley, your stop isn't a punishment but you still don't have to worry about it happening again."

"Lindsay you're brilliant," Gavin said, he didn't have any other words to say how glad he was to have her, to have any of them really.

"Don't worry," she said, "I know." She kissed his nose before she let go of his face, neither of them moved very far apart but she wasn't holding him captive until he figured out the error of his ways anymore. The two of them sat in silence for a while, letting the light from outside slowly fill the room even more. It was early still, but Gavin knew even now that he wasn't worried that he wouldn't be getting back to sleep - Michael would be up soon, Meg would be asleep until well after the rest of them had gotten up, and Lindsay's small yawn said she would probably drift off again for at least a few minutes. She wiggled around again, careful not to shake the bed enough to wake the other two, and Gavin thought she was getting adjusted so she could prove him right until she said, "You know what today is though?"

He wondered for a second if she'd been half-asleep through their last heart to heart. Gavin thought it was obvious that he knew what day it was. Lindsay continued, maybe it was obvious to her that he didn't, "Our anniversary."

"Yeah, Lindsay, I know."

"Well if you know then you should know that as the only person awake you're supposed to bring your sleeping bondmates breakfast in bed."

"What, you're awake too?"

"No I'm not," she said.

"Yes, you are," he said, letting himself get sucked into the pointless bickering.

"Nope," she said, giving the 'p' a loud pop before she gave him a challenging look. He wasn't sure what the look was supposed to mean until he felt the press of her constantly freezing toes under his leg. Gavin managed to suppress the yelp as she wiggled them under his calf and started to push him out of bed.

Her victory was quick as Gavin swung his legs away from her and off the bed, "Alright, alright, Christ."

If it were anyone but Lindsay he would have put up more of a fight, but her smirk of victory was enough that he almost didn’t mind getting pushed out of bed. Seeing her roll over to cuddle up with Meg and Michael again was enough to make him forget about his plan to make a mess of the kitchen while he was doing it - Michael would just end up cleaning the mess anyway, too much of a clean freak to let it sit until Lindsay would do it.

Making breakfast gave Gavin a chance to think anyway, to let his brain work in the way it needed to for this lesson Lindsay was trying to teach him to finally sink in. A stream of consciousness that moved too quickly for most to keep up with and had swept Gavin away more than once.

Gavin had spent a long time wondering what it would feel like to finally feel like he thought he was supposed to that he had missed the balance that the three of them brought. Things had worked when it was just Gavin and Michael. When Lindsay showed up it was like she sanded away some of the rough edges that were Michael and Gavin alone. Gavin had thought it was because she was filling the place meant for her, like a puzzle piece sliding into place, but now he thought it because Lindsay helped balance the two of them.

Then Meg came along.

She was smart and determined and was ready to give her all in the relationship once they cemented that bond.

No matter what they did or how they did it, when the four of them were together things were amazing. Dinners were spent talking and laughing long into the night, they’d been politely asked to leave more than one restaurant so the staff could clear the table. Nights at home were spent on the couch shouting at each other about videogames, there had been fights about Mario that only ended when the two fighting apologized in their own ways for being idiots. When they were together things just worked, even when they fought they worked it out.

It was good.

They were good.

Made Gavin feel like a right mong for worrying that they weren’t.

That’s why he had Lindsay and Michael and Meg. Gavin didn’t need someone to complete him, Lindsay had said it and it might take a while to get it to sink in completely, but he did need them. Someone who challenged him, loved him, tempered him.

“That makes my point even better,” Burnie said, “Gavin has been alive since before cars were even invented but still can’t drive.”

“I don’t need to,” Gavin reminded.

“And why don’t you need to?” Burnie asked, prompted.

“Oh!” Barb cried out, “Can I answer?”

“Go ahead Babs, why doesn’t Gavin need to drive?”

“Because he has Lindsay!”

Burnie snapped and pointed to Barb to indicate how right she was, “Yes, Lindsay got stuck with two man children and is pretty much doomed to spend the rest of her life driving Michael and Gavin around.”

“Michael can drive,” Gavin interrupted, if he couldn’t come to his own aid he could at least go to Michael’s.

“Letting the car drift downhill once or twice in the 20’s cause Geoff was too drunk to drive is not the same as being able to drive.”

“Alright get to the point then,” Gavin said, ready for this teasing to be over so they could end the podcast.

Burnie smirked, “Gus, Babs, did you get the same text I did from those two about Gavin?”

“The one that said I couldn’t give Gavin a ride home no matter how much he begged, yeah I got it,” Gus said, Barbara laughed and nodded to say she got a similar message.

“And the audience can’t see it,” Burnie said, “but Lindsay is not off camera waiting to take Gavin home.”

“What’d you do to piss Lindsay off?” Gus asked.

“I didn’t piss anyone off,” Gavin said, wondering how far Burnie and Gus were going to take this. Lindsay may not have been waiting off camera but Meg was, with her phone in her hand and a growing look of something on her face that he couldn’t quite make out through the lights on him.

“So it’s coincidence that Lindsay has her hands in just about every project we’ve got going right now, but she didn’t stay after running lines all afternoon?” Gus asked.

“Did you forget her birthday?” Barb asked.

Burnie laughed, “Or did the Joneses just think you were losing your twinkish figure so they’re making you walk home?”

Gavin made sure to keep his eye roll obvious enough that the camera would pick it up. “I haven’t changed since the 1930’s nothing’s wrong with my figure.” Gavin flinched when he realized what he said, thankful that they were pre-recording and not live. Someone in the audience would have picked that up, not that Gavin’s relationship with Michael and Lindsay was a secret but they didn’t share a lot either. He paused just long enough that they would be able to smoothly cut out his flub before it went up for the world to see, “I’m not walking anywhere.”

He got an almost imperceptible nod from Gus that said it would be gone when it went up on the site and YouTube. Burnie did his part by barreling on making sure that there was no reaction, nothing for the audience to notice as wrong. “Then who,” he started to raise his voice for the show of the argument but dropped it immediately when he noticed something off camera. “What was that Meg?”

Gavin could see her raise her phone as she started to speak again and Burnie held up a hand to stop her, “Gus is here, do we have the sidecar set up? No. Do we have time to set it up? Gus is glaring, never mind, go ahead Meg.”

Meg held her phone up again and as she spoke Burnie summarized for the audience. “Meg got a message from Lindsay, asking her to bring Gavin home and promised they would make it worth her while.” Burnie made sure to punctuate his story with an unnecessary amount of eyebrow waggling, that was a loose interpretation of what Meg had said and Gavin was pretty sure that wasn’t what Lindsay had sent.

“And that seems like a good reason to wrap up,” Gus said, before launching into his usual podcast wrap up speech.

Gavin stayed behind, doing his best not to look over at Meg as she waited patiently off stage for him. Gus didn’t even wait for Gavin to ask before he answered, “Patrick took down the time right before you flinched, it’ll be cut before they stream it on Monday. Be more careful next time, dumbass, don’t want to make that slip up when we’re live.”

Gavin nodded and took a steadying breath before walking toward Meg.

He knew the plan, Michael and Lindsay had gotten him excited for the plan but the part of him that had spent the weeks of ignoring Meg’s requests to talk after that night in the bar, that part of him was scared shitless. Gavin would be alone with Meg the whole trip home, and he had a feeling she wasn’t going to want to wait to ask about what was happening.

Burnie’s hand on his elbow gave him another second to get ready for that long ride home. “If you, or Michael or Lindsay, want to talk about your,” Burnie trailed off for a second as he considered what he was going to say, “situation on purpose sometime the audience would love to hear about it. You might even help some people like you.”

He couldn’t help but look over at Meg, she was watching him, when she noticed Gavin looking back she smiled, soft and confused at the edges. “We’ll think about it.”

“It can be sponsor only or an addition to the normal podcast, whatever you want,” Burnie said in an obvious attempt to convince him. Gavin’s expression must have been enough to show he wasn’t getting far in that attempt, “Just think about it. Go on, get out of here and do whatever it is you’re doing with Meg.

She didn’t say anything when Gavin walked up to her, just gave her keys a jingly shake and went out to her car trusting Gavin would follow.

Once the car was started, that was another story.

“Have you really been alive as long as Burnie said?” she asked.

“Little bit longer,” Gavin said, relieved that she was asking him about time and not the harder topics, “I was stopped ‘fore the war.”

She laughed a little bit at that, “Before the war, y’know you’ve been alive for all the ones people usually talk about someone might ask you to be more specific.”

Now it was Gavin’s turn to laugh, it was small but some of the tension bled from his shoulders. “You knew the one I meant, your little revolution.”

That set Meg off, a giggle that she couldn’t get under control until she was gasping for breath. “Sorry, wow, I can’t believe that English loyalty survived two centuries. I wasn’t even alive then, it wasn’t my little anything.” That seemed to remind her of something, Gavin watched as Meg stilled and her hands tightened their grip on the steering wheel for a second, a sure sign that the lighthearted joking they’d been doing for most of the short car ride home was about to give way to something more serious. “If you’ve been alive for that long, what happened in 1930?”

Looking out the window Gavin could tell they were almost home, he’d almost escaped having to have the difficult conversation on his own. Michael was right he was kind of a piece of shit, but this would be so much easier if he had Michael and Lindsay beside him.

“Turned twenty, stopped again.” That wasn’t everything that happened, but it was what mattered, what he’d admitted to in his comment on the podcast.

“Oh,” Meg said in that soft, taken aback way of someone worried they’d upset the grieving or opened an old wound. “Is that-?”

Gavin could almost hear the end of that question she left hanging. Is that what’s up with the ring? Is that why you ran? Is that why it’s complicated?

Gavin just shrugged.

What could he say to that really? That’s why it was complicated, Meg had already guessed. He was sure she had thought she’d figured it out, but as they were getting closer to their destination he didn’t really have the time to really explain. Too busy directing Meg to a house she’d never been to for him to be able to focus on having a conversation like the one they were about to have.

It was complicated, and they were pulling the drive already. Michael and Lindsay were waiting for them in the doorway - unable to wait for Meg and Gavin to even leave the car - the lights from the house keeping whatever expressions were on their faces in shadow. Meg just stopped the car and got out, greeting Michael and Lindsay like old friends instead of people she was meeting for the first time. Michael put a hand on his shoulder, jerking Gavin into his side for a second before he pulled them both through the door. Gavin could feel the remaining tension ease from his chest.

It was weird that Michael could go from being seconds away from a complete meltdown to stage whispering to Gavin about sneaking Edgar out of Ryan’s house. Or whinging that he was lost and needed Gavin to find him. Or pretending to vom up steaks like a damn bird cause Gavin said he was going to starve to death. Or a thousand other things that Michael would do on a normal day.

Until Geoff shouts, “Let’s stop,” to mark the end of each part and everyone drops their on camera personas for just a second so they can piss or refill their drinks, cause then Michael is picking his phone back up and hardly looking at Gavin.

By the end of the day Gavin felt like one misstep from anyone could cause him to snap. It’s not like Michael was intentionally winding him up or playing on centuries old insecurities, but he was. So by the time Lindsay finally left the B-team office so they could go home Gavin was feeling frazzled and the way she was looking at him, like she was trying to decide how much of what Michael had told her was true, wasn’t helping the feeling.

The near silent ride home had him wondering if it would be hard to bail out of a moving car. He’d never tried it before, but it looked so easy in GTA.

He didn’t, because Gavin didn’t have that same reckless spirit that Michael had. The thought was there though, right beside the thought that he could just run away now that they’d gotten home. He probably wouldn’t do it, not with how pissed with him Michael’d been earlier and he didn’t really know what Lindsay thought about the whole situation.

He’d been avoiding the situation for so long, it was probably time to sit and talk about it.

It was strange how being sat down on the sofa like this, with Michael and Lindsay standing in front of him, could make him feel like a child who was in trouble with their parents. They must have noticed the tension and sat down on either side of him, each taking one of his hands. The familiarity was comforting but Gavin couldn’t look at them just yet though, not if they were going to fight. He just looked at their hands in his.

“You’re a dumbass,” Michael said.

“But you’re our dumbass,” Lindsay added.

“So will you finally fucking sack up and tell us how you fucked things up with Meg so we can fix it.”

“I didn’t mess anything up,” Gavin said heatedly, all of his tension at being in this situation bleeding into his words even if he couldn’t quite meet their gaze, “I met with her and it didn’t work, so I left.”

Lindsay sighed, “You were right.”

Gavin looked up, he wasn’t that surprised to see Michael roll his eyes and the slightly annoyed but undoubtedly fond smile on his face. “Of course I was, I know you and Gav better than anyone and I know exactly what a shit Gav is.”

“Gavin’s also smarter than both of us and figured out it was Meg first,” she shook a sarcastic fist in the air, “damn my misguided faith.”

“Should have fucking known better, didn’t ask any fucking questions when he came back like some mopey bastard,” Michael griped.

“It’s not like it was hard to believe that a girl like that had already met their fated,” Lindsay shot back.

“I never said that,” Gavin said, not sure if he was being accused of something in the middle of Lindsay and Michael’s lighthearted bickering.

“No,” Michael said, “you just came home fucking sure that she wasn’t our fated anymore, so we fuckin’ assumed. Guess we should know what they say about that, cause I sure felt like an asshole when I saw her and she looked the exact same.”

“Least we know why Gav was being such a clingy prick for the last two weeks,” Lindsay said, “I still haven’t gotten to see her.”

“That’s what we get for thinking Gav had the balls to actually talk to her,” Michael said.

Gavin gaped offense pouring off every word when he said, “I bloody well did.”

Michael gave him that look, that ‘I’m certain everything coming out of your mouth right now is bullshit’ look, and had Gavin reconsidering what he said. “I did talk to her,” he repeated, cause it was true he had, “until I touched her and nothing happened. Something happened with both of you.” The last part was an unnecessary addition but it sounded like a plea for understanding to Gavin’s ears, they had to know he wouldn’t have done any of this if he hadn’t needed to.

Michael nodded like that was what he was waiting to hear, “Gav, for someone so smart you are so fucking stupid.”

Gavin pouted but took the backhanded compliment without a word. He probably deserved it for not saying anything sooner.

“Gav,” Michael said softly, as close to an apology as Gavin was going to get for any of the harsh words, “how did I meet Lindsay, you remember?”

“At the radio station,” Gavin answered sullenly, pouting for an entirely different reason now. Michael knew something, he’d obviously figured it out hours ago; and Lindsay’s silence said she knew whatever it was too, a message shared through their texts that had been driving Gavin crazy all day. It must be pretty important too, if Lindsay was able to stay quiet, she usually got so excited she spoiled the news.

“We ran into each other there, ran into, Gav. I touched Lindsay five or six times just picking up her things and helping her off the fucking ground.”

“Then why,” Gavin asked, mind moving in jumps and leaps his mouth couldn’t keep up with. “You weren’t bonded when she came over?” He said it like a question but Gavin knew they weren’t, Michael had been just as surprised as Gavin and Lindsay had been when they’d bonded.

“It doesn’t work unless we’re all there, Gavin,” Lindsay said.

“Thought you knew that,” Michael said, “otherwise we would have come up with a damn plan before we sent you off.”

“How the hell was I supposed to know that?” Gavin asked, snapped really. He had been worried about fighting with Michael now that he finally knew about Meg, but the calm understanding he was getting felt patronising.

“How the hell do any of us know anything about this, Gavin,” Michael said, finally raising his voice as he dropped Gavin’s hand so he wave his as he spoke, “we guess, trust our instincts, we fucking-” He gaped and managed a couple stuttered half words but the rest of his sentence was obviously forgotten.

“Nobody knows what they’re doing, we might know less than most. You just keep moving until you figure something out or you find what you’re looking for and then it doesn’t matter so damn much that you don’t know anything,” Lindsay said.

“And now that we’ve figured out that you’re an emotionally constipated dumbass that doesn’t know how to have a conversation with a girl we practically stalked across the country, me and Lindsay can clean up your mess.”

“We’re gonna set you and Meg up,” Lindsay said giving his hand a squeeze in her excitement.

“Clean up, set up, what? What about you?” Gavin asked.

Her wink felt salacious, but that could be because he almost knew what Lindsay was going to say before she said, “Much like last night, I’ll come after you do.”

“We’ll meet Meg after you’ve sorted out your shit,” Michael said, “we just have to agree on how; and by that I obviously fucking mean make Lindsay realize how fucking stupid her idea is.”

Gavin flinched back as Lindsay jabbed a finger at Michael, “There’s nothing wrong with my idea, it’s worked in tropey fiction across genres for centuries.”

“So’s the makeover, but we’re not gonna take off our glasses and let down our hair so Meg can see we were beautiful all along,” Michael said.

Lindsay rolled her eyes, “Yeah cause they’re totally the same thing, you want to be Gavin’s Freddy Pr.inze Jr. and I want him to talk to a girl.”

“You wanted to lock them in the fucking supply closet!”

“It’s a work in progress,” she admitted, “but getting the two of them together is a good plan!”

Michael scoffed, “There is no good plan that involves trapping Gavin somewhere and making him talk.”

“We’re giving him a chance to talk to her.”

“We’d be giving him a chance to overthink everything he said and make everything fucking worse.”

“I’m right here,” Gavin reminded them.

“Can you argue that you’re a piece of shit that can’t talk to new people, cause the situation we’re in begs to differ.”

“I’m not a child, Michael, I can talk to a girl,” Gavin snapped.

“I know you can, boi, but I’ve also know you for forever. I know locking you in a closet isn’t gonna get us anything but a meeting with HR and lose use the last of Meg’s good will.”

“So what’s your plan then,” Lindsay asked. “All you’ve done today is shoot down my ideas.”

Michael shrugged, “I think we should take it slow-”

Lindsay snorted and covered her mouth to stop the sound before she said, “That’s a first for you.”

“I think we should not that we would, I don’t think any of could actually wait the days or weeks it would take to do it slow.”

“That doesn’t sound like a plan, Michael,” Gavin pointed out.

“I know, Gavin,” he said with a drawn out sigh.

They sat in silence as they each tried to think of a plan to win Meg over, ideas marked by open mouths and excited eyes and punctuated with a soft sigh and a resigned slump when they realized it wouldn’t work. Until Michael sat up with a start, latching onto Gavin’s arm like that would let him hang on to the idea. “You’re recording the podcast early tomorrow, right?”

When they landed in the city Gavin had a message waiting for him: That’s a no then, take her number and talk to her. I’m done sending messages you aren’t answering.

Two weeks after they’d gotten settled back in Austin, and during his first day back at work, he got one that read: You’re a piece of shit. Gavin wasn’t sure if that one was about Meg, it could have been anything really.

Then it was nothing, well not nothing, it was business as usual. Burnie would text him or email him when he needed him or to ask him if he was going to be on the podcast, but any mention of Meg just stopped.

It made Burnie’s request to, Make sure you’re at the morning meeting tomorrow, all the stranger. With Michael and Lindsay gone, a weekend convention extended thanks to a cancelled flight, Gavin had planned on doing his editing from home since there weren’t any plans to record - what with Ryan at home sick with his mysterious fated and Jack with Caiti in Australia. But even with as lax as Rooster Te.eth was with rules, Gavin couldn’t ignore an order from his boss.

But he might as well have.

Burnie wasn’t even there when the meeting started. Gavin and Geoff had slipped in right as the meeting had started and Matt didn’t give them more than a passing glance as they walked in, starting the meeting as usual. Gavin didn’t see Burnie anywhere and nothing Matt was saying had anything to do with Gavin.

If it wouldn’t get him called out in front of everyone, he’d text Burnie and ask why the hell he needed to be here.

And since Burnie had an excellent sense of timing he walked in right as Gavin was thinking that.

With Meg following right behind him.

“And here’s Burnie with our newest hire,” Matt said, “Meg will be working on The Kn.ow with Ashley.”

Meg waved and smiled at the small group of bored employees listening to the early morning meeting, but she was looking at Gavin when she raised an eyebrow and her smile quirked up into something else. If she was asking a question Gavin wasn’t able to decipher what it was.

“Now get the fuck back to work,” Burnie joked, “what the hell are we paying you for?”

The members of each department laughed as they went their separate ways. Gavin made a point of running off before Burnie could call his name. The feeling that Meg was watching him was as much in his head as the feeling he’d had that she was his fated he was sure.

Avoiding her was going to be hard now.

Keeping Michael and Lindsay away from her was going to be even harder. He would just have to do his best to keep them apart.

Which meant grabbing Lindsay by the arm as she was leaving the B-team office to grab lunch. Pulling her over so she was between him and Michael and keeping her distracted until he knew that The Kn.ow was recording.

Which meant telling Michael to sit back down before he could head to the kitchen. Insisting that he needed something too and could grab Michael’s red bull while he was up.

It meant volunteering to go get Ryan from where he was messing around with the computer hosting their minecraft server. Afterall, Lindsay was mid-edit and Michael still hadn’t gotten in the game.

It was a system that worked; and if Michael or Lindsay or anyone else wondered why Gavin was suddenly being helpful or treating for lunch they were afraid that asking him about it would make it stop. It was a system that also meant he only saw Burnie while they were working, so he wasn’t on his dick about talking to Meg. He didn’t get much more from Meg than looks: confused, questioning, and sometimes annoyed. Gavin thought it was a pretty good plan.

Which meant Michael had to fuck it up.

“I need a fucking drink before we record this,” Michael announced to the room at large as they all set up for what was going to be a long recording.

“I’ll get it Michael, boi,” Gavin said, up and out of his seat in a second.

“I can get my own fucking drink, Gavin, you aren’t even in the fucking game yet.” Michael shrugged off Gavin’s hand from his shoulder and walked toward the door.

“No really Michael, I have to piss I’m leaving anyway.” Gavin was insistent now his hands on Michael’s arm now, trying to gently pull him back into the room.

“Then I want you touching my drink even less.” Michael pulled his arm out of Gavin’s grip and took another step toward the door. Another step toward where Gavin knew Meg was sitting, because he’d overheard Ryan talking to her on his last diet coke run.

“Why don’t we just wait til after this recording,” Gavin suggested trying to get out in front of Michael to cut him off but only managing to get a hand on Michael’s shoulder and back around his wrist, “I’ll take you and Lindsay out to lunch.”

“Linds is in the booth all day and Geoff’s been a sneaky prick about what we’re recording so it’s gonna be a thousand fucking parts.” Michael said, pulling away from Gavin roughly this time.

Gavin latched onto him again, “But-”

“God damn it Gavin I need a fucking redbull get the hell away from me so I can go to the kitchen,” Michael snapped and shoved Gavin out of the way so he could take that last step into the kitchen.

Into the kitchen where Meg was sitting.

Michael stopped mouth still open and staring at Meg. She was standing up, caught in mid movement, and looking at Michael and Gavin with a look that Gavin couldn’t recognize. There was a glimmer of an emotion that Gavin thought he might be able to recognize if he could look a little longer, but once Gavin noticed it was there it was gone. A small, confused smile replaced it as Meg finished standing and waved to Michael before leaving the room.

“Gavin,” Michael said, voice slow and even measured like the rhythmic tick of a timer before a bomb was about to go off.

“Yeah, Michael, boi?” Gavin said, trying and he knew he was failing to keep his voice even and light.

“Was that who I think it was?”

“Guess that depends.”

“On what?” A slight uptick, the timer was moving faster now on a bomb Gavin was now pretty sure he wasn’t going to be able to diffuse.

“On who you think it was.”

A deep breath and a sigh, they were still standing in the doorway of the Achievement H.unter office. The timer of the bomb has gone black, and Gavin isn’t sure if it’s because he’s safe or because it’s about to explode.

“Gavin, I’m going to ask you two questions and if you aren’t honest I swear to god I’m taking Lindsay and we’re fucking leaving you.”

It was an empty threat but it was effective. “Of course, Michael.”

“Was that Meg? And when the fuck were you going to tell us that you never fucking talked to her?”

“I talked to her,” Gavin said, upset and defensive and hurt. He hadn't expected this conversation to go well, it was why he didn't want to have it, but he hadn't expected Michael to accuse him of lying. “Of course I talked to her, Michael.”

Gavin wasn’t one for emotional outbursts, the occasional exaggerated anguish for a let’s play or a happy squeaky laugh when he got to prank someone with Michael; but now, now he was close to tears. A desperate, stressed out feeling had a lump clawing its way up his throat and hot angry tears trying to make their way to his eyes. He felt ridiculous, upset over nothing, but this was a misunderstanding that he couldn’t stand.

A hand reached out to grab Gavin’s arm, soft and consoling, and he looked up to find Michael’s face had softened with a kind of understanding. “We’ll talk about this when Lindsay’s here,” he said and it was enough to make those threatening tears dry and the lump in his throat shrivel. Gavin hadn’t escaped that conversation but he’d delayed it and the look on Michael’s face said he had a lot to say when they had it.

“Will you two dicks quit jerking each other off and get back in here,” Geoff’s voice rang out and ruined whatever moment or crisis Gavin and Michael had been having. “This let’s play is gonna take long enough without us waiting on you.”

“Yeah we’re fucking coming,” Michael said.

Michael took another step toward the fridge to grab the redbull that had kicked all this off again; but as Gavin took a step in the opposite direction, back toward the office with Geoff, Michael’s hand tightened around his arm again. “You aren’t wiggling out of this conversation,” he warned, “we’re going to talk about this, and why I’m not mad that you were going to avoid Meg until we were the last four people on the fucking planet, later.”

Gavin nodded and made sure to look properly chastised as Michael let go of his arm. Later, he could handle later. He’d been dealing with 'later’s since he stepped off the boat that carried him to this continent and this 'later' was bringing with it answers that Gavin had possessed and not known and that Michael had pieced together.