#re: garrett

gatsby has always hated the more frantic energy from some customers.  they are the ones who do not stop with wonder or joy to enter metronome, nor do they take a moment to touch and breathe and live in the space he has created with his mind and hands.  instead they rush in.  desperate hands reaching for things so brutally that packaging is ripped and corners are often bent beyond repair, complaints focused only at gatsby once they realize what has happened and refuse to admit to fault.  some, he knows, would be angry at them.

all he can do is pity them.  try to sing a little louder, a little clearer, even remove the gum from his mouth so that there’s nothing to slur on.  sing and hope the sound is enough to soothe their wild hearts and frantic minds into a state of clean joy, even if only for a moment.

he does so for this man.  an officer still in uniform, though more well dressed than gatsby is used to.  there was a conference wasn’t there -- a meeting of police officers or higher men regarding the murders?  gatsby can’t recall.  those parts of the news belong to his sister rather than himself, but it was in a neighboring sister city.  frantic for something to listen to then, he decides.  mind whirling as he watches the officer make larger circles into smaller ones through each display with wild eyes that never quite pause on a single album.

gatsby sings, and leans on his arms.  hunched over his counter until the man mutters a name that he can hear through his own singing, through the hidden stereos.  kipling.  more like a curse than a time honored human, and both these things bring gatsby’s mind to pause.  

a book then, not an album.  he slides back from his counter, words to humming as he moves through metronome towards the for once paused police officer.  fingers on his shoulder, brief and digging as gatsby continues to walk past him.  speaks without looking back.

    “hear and attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was: o my best beloved, when the tame animals were wild.”  with a faint smile on his mouth, there and then gone before truly noticeable, gatsby stops at one of few bookshelf like displays against the walls.  “you’re here for an audio book, yes?  kipling?  here--”

and with a push, the bookcase slides open.  a small, warm light room with rug and chairs and more shelves full of the same media options with different covers and titles suddenly displayed.  gatsby steps back.  nods towards the space.  

alec can take a comfort in how sore and stiff he is, the dirt that stains his cheeks and has turned his hands a darker color no matter how often he washed them, scrubbed them down first alone and then with dishes when garrett had gone to put his sons to bed.  absolutely worthy for the look on his face when emerging -- somewhere between disgruntled and fascinated as he’d taken in alec’s work.  bemused by the stains trapped in his calluses as he tossed the damn drying rag in garrett’s direction.  said, you offered something to drink? and then headed out towards the backyard that offered them some semblance of privacy.  a chance to talk without low voices and glances at a shut bedroom door.

it doesn’t take the sheriff long to join alec out there.  barely enough time to settle and stretch his legs out in one of the chairs around the fire pit they cleared out earlier that afternoon, when alec handing old logs over and garrett, softly, showing the charred black patterns to his sons.  letting them dip their fingers against it and come back dark, delighted squeals as they took to rubbing the ash upon one another’s faces.  messy, joyful creatures.  alec can hear them even now like a long lasting echo, laughing as they had ran through the garden.  ignoring their father’s stern reminders that alec was working in return for the bright humor from the new, exciting stranger tossing small handfuls of dirt in their direction.

      “i’m half sorry for getting your kids filthy.”  he says to garrett as the other man comes close enough.  they’ve already set out logs, some other things alec doesn’t recognize beyond the lighter and box of matches side by side, new and old technology in very different forms.  “showers before dinner are mandatory for anyone that age anyway so it’s not as though i did massive damage to them.  just your drains.  maybe.”  

as alec takes his drink from the other man’s hands, he bumps his boot against garrett’s ankle.  nothing hard enough to send him to his knees, but a pressure.  a tease that matches his laugh as he leans back again.  even without the fire going it’s warm, on the edge of luke warm enough that he does find himself craving that fresh heat.  something to scare away mosquitoes as well -- they glisten in the air, like stars when still and something wretched when moving quickly.  he’d offered to set it up for garrett.  earned a dubious eyebrow, a you know how to start a fire?

the cackle wasn’t trustworthy, apparently.  he’s confined to his chair now, watching and silent.  considering.

alec looks down at the mug in his hand.  coffee, no alcohol offered by the sheriff in a classic move that had him teasing garrett for quite a few minutes while being offered cream and sugar, a hilarious amount of options that speaks of plenty of babysitters who use his fridge.  even then the conversation turned to family.  it almost always does with them, three children between two households of such varied ages that the talks have hundreds of different directions to take.  

not often do they talk about partners.  it feels taboo to speak of with garrett, sensitive and fragile as cracking glass in shaking hands.  but it’s him who starts the talk.  low voiced and eyes far away, an exhaustion that makes alec’s heart burn and twist into knots he’s unfamiliar with.  an ache that he thinks he may have felt once or twice in his life in different colors, different songs than garrett has with this terrible, wretched splitting of his marriage.  

christ.  a marriage.  there’s where the real difference is, huh?  garrett had the bravery to tie the knot with someone, and alec’s the type who thinks he’d have left any partner from the past at the altar.  his throat feels tight.  sipping on the coffee in his hands automatically, uncertain if it will make it down or end up coughed right back up.  

he likes to think these are the talks that he’s good at, and yet here he is sitting in a silence that garrett lets him keep.  no pushing when you’re caught in your own memories.  ignorant, blissfully, of the fluttering in alec’s stomach that no amount of drinking will ever keep drowned out.  he’s failing, isn’t he?  no comfort for garrett, the one skill alec’s never lost suddenly failing him at the worst of times.

those fingers tighten more and more around his coffee mug.  brings it to his mouth, then lowers without drinking.  alec swallows down air.

     “that’s sweet and melancholy.”  he says faintly, trying to smile and wondering how badly he’s failed.  “but if i’m honest i just don’t know, it’s something that i’ve... never experienced.  weird, right, when i have a kid.  surely i’ve been there once, in terrible love with someone and unable to contain it.”  

laughing, alec feels his throat dry.  clears it, as he looks at garrett on the principle of having to.  of being friends.  fellow parents.  of somehow thinking he deserves to know this, even though they’ve never talked about these things until right, right now.  so why?  

shit.  alec doesn’t know.

     “thing is i don’t know how deeply i’ve ever been in love.  college -- i wasn’t real there, you’ve heard about it.  and then there was philo, and everything in my life has just... been... philo.  i’ve never wanted to ruin that or scare her away.  upset her.  you’ve heard about that with step parents and all i could picture whenever i went on dates was: how could this effect my kid?”  alec’s eyes hurt.  finally he lets himself turn them down to his drink, the dark liquid rippling with each small motion.  “except here she is all grown up, a woman in her own right, and the excuse feels cheap.  i’ve probably met the persons that i’m supposed to fall in love with and have... everything with.  and then i’ve probably just chased them away.”

Fuck: Wendy

Marry: Willy?

Fuck: Boon lets face it I’m not dumb

Marry: Herk.