wickerpark | the emotional support meme

Entry tags:

the emotional support meme

Everyone has bad days. Everyone needs a little support, someone to listen to their woes or just silently hug them and not mind tears or emotional ranting. What reason is life crushing you today? How will you cope with it?

directions

1. Comment with your character, series, preferences, etc in the subject.
2. Roll a number between 1-20 with the RGN for a prompt.
3. Reply to other comments and play the scenario out!
4. Bring tissues.

prompts

1. LOST SOMETHING You lost something important: this could be a person, a family heirloom, or your job… something big or small, it still affects you personally. Can you find it, or get a new job, or find some way to fill the gap in your chest?

2. LITTLE THINGS Little things have been building up: bills, annoying neighbors, your cat is hiding from you, coworkers being jerks. They’re not huge by themselves, but can be when put together. Can you solve them one by one? Or all at once?

3. DEATH Someone near you recently died. It could be someone you loved, someone you hated, a friend or enemy but death is never easy to get over, from funeral arrangements to regrets. Having someone there for you helps, though.

4. BAD DAY It’s just been a bad day. Someone yelled at you, a car splashed mud all over you, you woke up late, and your milk went sour. Can someone cheer you up?

5. LONELY One of the hardest things to get over is being lonely. It either takes a lot of personal strength or the strength of yourself and someone else combined. Can you see that you are not alone, or will someone be able to show you?

6. DECISION MAKING You need help making a big decision: something important, something that could change your life and the life of others around you.

7. INJURY Anything from tripping to getting into a car accident is never fun, and sometimes, you need some help getting over your injuries, but that is what friends and family helping you out and giving some tender loving care are for.

8. DISAPPOINTMENT You were hoping to get or achieve something, but didn’t, and now you have to live with the disappointment. Can someone help you see the bright side of things and get back up to fight again?

9. FIGHT You had a huge fight with someone involving fists, words, throwing things, or anything else a fight might entail, and are left emotionally distraught. Can someone comfort you, and maybe bandage up your wounds too?

10. EXHAUSTION You have either not been sleeping well, have a lot on your mind, too many responsibilities… and it is all weighing down on you. Do you have someone to vent at or someone who can distract you or convince you to relax?

11. JUDGMENT Someone criticized you, and it wasn’t the healthy kind either. Those always hurt the worst, but surely someone will convince you it’s not true.

12. MISSING SOMEONE There isn’t much you can do about someone being on a long trip, moving away, or wanting an ex back, but maybe it would help if someone was there to miss and remember them along with you.

13. FORGOTTEN You have been feeling neglected and forgotten lately, for no reason at all, or maybe there is one. Is there someone to stop this feeling?

14. BROKE UP Ending a relationship is never easy. Sometimes it’s for a good reason, other times it’s a mistake, but it happens anyways. You still need someone around to help you adjust to being single again, maybe convince you to celebrate.

15. JOB DEMANDS No matter what industry you are in, sometimes, it’s sucks. Audits? Mountains of paperwork? Insane hours? It can make you really hate a job and need a little support to muscle through it until you can find a better one.

16. DEPRESSION Then there is just… everything and you get stuck into a rut you can’t get out of and it’s a deeper issue. Can someone convince you to get professional help or get onto a regiment that will work for you?

17. FAMILY They can be the biggest support system a person can have, or sometimes they are the cause of all the problems of the world. Can you work the issues out, or will you need support from an outside source?

18. ILLNESS From a cold to an illness that has kept you in the hospital for months, it’s nice to know that people are thinking of you and wishing the best through bowls of soup, flowers, get-well cards, and more. Best of all are those who come to visit.

19. SELF-ESTEEM Not everyone is as confident as they wish to be, or as the person next to them. Sometimes, life just gives you blow after blow. Is there someone near by who can help lift your spirits and renew your fighting spirit?

20. WILD CARD Is there another scenario you had in mind? Was there something we missed? Roll again or make up your own adventure!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gael did not know just how long it had been since Patrick had died, since his world had started to spin wildly out of control. He did know that Ollie had wrangled him into helping with the Orchestra, mostly having him handle the more mundane dramas that seemed to pop up every day. And at first things had been fine, he'd been fine to deal with it. Only it didn't last, and one day he'd just not bothered to show up for work. Followed by skipping the next day, then the whole week. He'd even gone so far as to avoid Oliver altogether, and Lawrence. He knew they'd both seem something broken and damaged, and that hurt his pride as much as anything.

He painted on a smile for Sarah, mostly because after they'd found a place to live that was close to the Player's Quarter, but still relatively new and clean (and safe, being Sarah's objective word of choice). Still, she was there every day- checking in on him, asking him to come out with her. Asking how his day at work had gone, without perhaps knowing when he'd stopped trying to pretend he was working. He made some money on the side, doing the same sort of things he'd always done though it lacked the vigor and the coy playfulness. Instead, his parents noted, Gael was as hard as stone and quick to grow tired of games when a darker mood struck him. He'd taken to using drugs to ease his moods, alcohol to keep himself in check as best he could. Still, it wasn't always enough. And his body bore the scars of his irritability.

Carlos still came around, though Gael had started to note more caution in the other man. His eyes searching out something in Gael's face every time the Heart painted a brilliant, if false, smile across his face. Their meetings, Gael noted, had started to be less about the sex and more of something else- and a war waged inside of him that had his heart begging to break open the cold, hardened shell he'd hidden it behind. But his mind was a steel trap that refused to entertain notions of affection or love long enough for it to take root.

Indeed, if anything had started to take root, it was the nefarious desire to feel nothing. He was at his happiest when he was empty. All the pain, all the nightmares could melt away. Fear meant nothing, and he could live with joy being hollow if it meant that fear was not an inescapable monster lurking behind every door in the dark.

Sarah was at work, doing what she could to earn enough money to make herself happy as Gael sat at home alone with his bottle of whiskey and a few lines of blow. Glancing over, he could see his phone light up with another text from Oliver begging him to just answer him, pleading. Wanting to know where he was, what he was doing. Why...he wouldn't talk to him. But for all his anger, his disgust at himself for being weak of mind and body, of being a disappointment and a failure- he did not want to taint Oliver's joy. Staying away was for the best, really. Because when he saw the way Oliver lit up at the mere mention of Tyler Kagan, a darkness welled up inside of him.

He hated Tyler Kagan. He hated him, and every thing he represented- he'd stolen Gael's closest of companions, and he made Oliver happy in a way Gael never would have, and he hated him for it. Why did he hate him for it? Why did he hate Oliver for being happy? These were questions he couldn't answer, he knew. Not now, not in his current state...

Maybe not ever.

Mostly, he supposed, he hated them for being what he couldn't be- truly happy with themselves. Where they were, what they were doing with their lives. And what was he? Nothing, really. He was a shell, absent in all forms of the word. A fake that people lavished fake affection upon, and then left to find their true happiness else where. How was he supposed to be their equals? They all put him on a pedestal and waited, it seemed, for him to fall. And now that he had, no way looked his way twice. He would have nothing left to give this world, when he left. No memory of him would exist.

So then, he found himself wondering more and more- what was the point of wasting everyone's time?

Pushing the phone away, Gael sniffed to clear his sinuses before bending over his side table and snorting the last line of blow before fall back against his mattress. Staring at the ceiling of his room, he listened to the silence around him and wished it would just engulf him already. He was tired of this....emptiness.

He wasn't exactly sure when a text from Oliver Byrd became something expected. Sometime after Hadyn had come to his apartment, telling him he had to make a choice when it came to Gael - but before Ollie had had to fire him from the job he'd given him. Something both he and Sarah knew, though he didn't think Sarah had mentioned anything about it to Gael. That wasn't like her either, Carlos thought as he used his spare key to let himself into the apartment. But Sarah didn't know what to do about Gael. He couldn't be managed the way she managed most of the people in her life; she'd deny it, but it was kind of true.

Carlos didn't try to manage people, but he didn't know what to do with Gael either, he thought as he walked down the hall and paused in the doorway. He just watched for a moment, knowing from the look of him that Gael didn't even know he was there. Wouldn't, unless he said something. Carlos could leave and his lover would be none the wiser. He'd long since given up that option, though, and he walked all the way inside, sitting down on the mattress next to Gael. He looked down, and his eyes were serious. They almost always were anymore. It wasn't about sex anymore, he thought as he leaned on one elbow and stared into Gael's blue eyes. There was hardly ever any sparkle to them anymore. There was hardly any of the charm or the flirtation that Gael had aimed in all directions. What was there now, he thought, was heartbreaking, and it terrified him, but it was real, horribly real, in the way the sparkle hadn't been. Not really.

He reached out and smoothed a fingertip under one of Gael's eyes, wiping away the tracks of dried tears. "We have a problem, mi corazón," he said. "I promised you I'd play by your ground rules, and I can't do that anymore." He'd said he wouldn't confess love as long as Gael didn't, he thought. Gael hadn't, but, Carlos thought, they'd gotten to a point where he couldn't keep that inside and he couldn't let Gael keep doing this. Hadyn had been right.

He couldn't hope to catch Gael as he fell.

"I'm tired," he said, hearing his voice as if it were someone else speaking entirely. He laid there, feeling his heart beat in his chest with the same steady rhythm it always had. Only this time, it felt a little like someone else's heart. He didn't know when the cocaine stopped giving him the high he wanted, but it must have been recent. He wasn't even sure why he still tried, honestly. Maybe it was just a sheer need to blunt everything else out, and not knowing how else to try. "I just...want it to stop."

Slowly he turned his head slightly, looking up at Carlos with those same empty eyes that he'd long given up on hiding from everyone else. People didn't like him as much, he realized, when his eyes didn't sparkle with mischievousness. When his smile was too easy to see through. And none of them realized, it seemed, that it had always been a lie. In a way, his happiness had always been the lie he told the world. Himself.

"Make it stop," he breathed out in a plea, gazing up at Carlos. "Please, just...make it stop....I-I can't take it any more. I...don't have it in me." His voice was a whisper, really. Like much of Gael himself, it was a ghost of the man he'd been.

"I know," Carlos said. His hand curved around Gael's cheek as he looked down at him. "I know you do. I know." He knew too well, he thought. He hadn't ever spiraled as far down as Gael, but there had been too many times when he'd been consumed by emptiness. Times when he understood Hadyn a little too well, and times that he'd hidden from his best friend as best as he'd been able. From everyone else, too.

In that, maybe, he and Gael were more alike than they'd imagined before they'd begun this thing. Carlos had hidden behind a stoic exterior that was nothing like the charming, laughing Heart that Gael had been. There had, even, been times when he wondered if that's what he'd fallen in love with - that sparkling, charming whirlwind who'd pulled him out of morose moods without ever asking why. But that wasn't true, Carlos thought as he slipped onto his back to lay with Gael, pulling him close. He was in as deep with this Gael Shaw as the one who'd made him laugh as they'd tangled in the sheets.

"I love you," he said as he wrapped his arms around Gael. In a story, the words themselves would be healing, but in real life he knew they were just words. "I want to make it stop. I don't want you to hurt anymore, darling. But we can't make it stop by ourselves." They couldn't make it stop if Gael pushed away everyone who loved him out of some misguided sense of protecting their happiness.

No. No, he wanted to scream it at Carlos, but he didn't have the energy to manage even that last shred of defense against that thing called 'love'. And it was easy to scream out that that was all they were- words. Empty, hallow, and meaningless as the day was long. But he couldn't. He couldn't find the strength in him to fight it, even as Carlos pulled him close. He couldn't fight himself as he rolled toward that warmth, shrinking against a broad chest as strong arms held him close and tight.

"You shouldn't," he said softly, hiding himself within Carlos' grasp as much as seeking comfort in it. Was it wrong, he wondered, to want this? Was he fair to this man whom he'd promised to not love....was it fair to let Carlos love him. It couldn't be, but the alternative felt crushing, as if the worst of his pain was suddenly being held at bay by the arms wrapped around him protective. "I'll ruin you, you know. I've ruined myself..." He whispered, "you shouldn't love me. I don't know how to love you back."

Except, he thought deep in the recesses of his mind, he did. And his heart skipped a beat, before squeezing tightly in his chest as he shuddered. He knew it was just a matter of letting go of something he'd held so tightly in his grasp for so long...it wasn't love he'd forgotten, it was how to not be afraid of what it could do.

"You shouldn't be here," he said after a long silence fell between them, his eyes deeping low, though they were hidden against Carlos' chest. "I shouldn't let you be here..."

He felt Gael tense in his arms, and he braced for that first sharp stab of rejection. It would leave him wounded and bleeding where no one could see, but he'd lived through that before. It would break his heart, but he'd lived through that, too. It would ruin him again, and maybe he'd not really recover from it again, but he need Gael to know it, no matter the consequences. Then Gael didn't pull away, instead he curled closer, sinking into Carlos, and Carlos' arms tightened around him reflexively as he stared down at Gael's bent head.

There were still the words he braced himself for, and there was a sad curve to his lips as he bent his head slightly to brush his lips against the top of Gael's head. Of course Gael didn't love him. He'd known he wouldn't, because despite what his father - his real father, Hadyn, not the man he shared blood with - said, Carlos was not a man people felt that kind of big, overwhelming emotion for. He wasn't loved that way. "You don't have to love me back," he murmured before they fell into a silence. It was better to not have that expectation anyway, he thought. Better to love without expecting the same.

He closed his eyes as he held Gael close to him, not opening them again until Gael spoke again. "I'm not going to let you push me away," he said, smoothing his hand down Gael's spine. The stitches were long gone, the gashes healed, and he knew better than anyone that there were few scars in their place to show how much Gael had been broken. "I think you think it's easier when you do, but it's not. Not for you and not for me." Not for Sarah, either, who never really managed to banish the worry from her eyes. Not for Ollie, who looked a little haunted when they talked about Gael.

Silence fell between them, which was strange in and of itself. They were not a pair known for quiet, or gentle moments. Truly, though, Gael suspected Carlos was far more capable of it than he'd oft touted of himself. Gael knew this because of what he knew in himself, that there were times he could be almost loving in the company of his lovers. Gentle, sweet and kind. He'd most often shared that side of himself with Ollie, but things had changed now.

He also knew that despite Carlos' words, that it wasn't fair to take love given and not return it. He'd been the victim of that with Patrick, had he not? That had been the force that hardened his heart and mind and kept the world at arms length. Was he the sort of person, now, that did not mind taking and giving nothing back?

By the time he moved again, he wasn't sure if Carlos had drifted off, but his high was gone. It had been replaced with something else, something as equally unfulfilling as he gently pushed himself away and up. Looking down at Carlos, he stared at the other man's face for a long while, wishing there was some power in him that he could wield as a weapon against the man. Something that let the other know how unworthy of this 'love' he was...

Something that could stop him from hurting such a beautiful soul.

That single thought had him rolling his eyes a little at himself, as he swung his legs off the edge of the bed and glanced at his open door and then the clock. Hours had slipped by, and despite the lateness of the day...Gael did not feel the usual anxiousness that Sarah's impending arrival meant. He didn't know why, but Gael did suspect it had to do with the man sleeping on his bed behind him. He had, after all, slept in relative peace for the first time in so long.

It was enough that he glanced back at Carlos, and looking over his face once again before he scrubbed his own. Heh. How long had it been since he last shaved, he wondered. Or had anything of substance to eat? Reaching out behind him, he pulled a throw across the bed, and gently draped it over Carlos before he stood and moved to close the bedroom door. Well, whatever this new normal was...He didn't think he was going to start understanding it right now.

At the very least, he thought, he could shower. And probably shave. Definitely shave.

Carlos had spent the years of his early twenties building himself up - into someone strong, clearly so, and people didn't usually seek him out for gentleness. Not for sex and not in relationships, at any rate, and he'd long since grown used to being controlled in all aspects of his life and controlled and more than a little rough in the bedroom. The last time he'd been gentle or sweet or kind with a lover? He'd been seventeen. It had made the world unravel.

That love, such that it had been, had smashed into nothing soon after. Michel had been slightly older, but still not prepared for his younger boyfriend to make him the center of his world in the wake of losing everything else. He'd pushed Carlos away in the way most likely to make a wounded teenage boy back off - with cruel words and a sharp rejection - and that as much as what Felipe had done...was enough for Carlos to begin to close certain parts of himself off. The shield he built between himself and others had only thickened over time, forming a firm, confident exterior over an unsure and increasingly cynical heart.

He woke after Gael had draped the blanket over him and after he'd slipped out of the room, and he woke not from any particular sound or movement - the last several weeks had rendered his usual light sleep into something deeper this time. Instead it was just the sensation of being alone when he'd fallen asleep wrapped around someone else, and he sat up in bed, pushing his hands through his hair. It must be late, he thought, from how low the sun was in the sky. Sarah would be back soon, and that thought was enough to have him toss back the blanket and drop his legs over the edge of the mattress to stand up. That was, though, when the door opened, and Gael stepped back in - damp and in a towel, and somehow looking a little more like the man he'd seen before Patrick had returned.

It was almost enough to make a man believe those words did have magic, Carlos thought as he leaned back on his hands. "You waking up before me has to be a first," he said, his voice still a little rough from sleep as he smiled crookedly. "Hi."

The shower hadn't been terribly long, but it had done the job to washing away the grim he had felt coated his skin. It was probably all in his head, but either way...it had done him good. It let him mull over his problems in a clear and pragmatic way that he'd learned from Daniel after years of doing homework at the kitchen table and trying to convince his father to just do the math for him. It had never worked, but it had taught him to do his math on his own- his father gently pushing him to work through the problem step by step.

He'd shaved in the shower, running a hand over his smooth skin afterward with a sense of rightness in himself. He was, he thought, not well off...but better than he'd been hours ago. Not that, he supposed, Carlos really needed to know how close to the edge of oblivion Gael had come. And Carlos was still a problem, one he did not know how to deal with. One he did not know how he could hurt, either. He liked the man- for more than the sex. He was funny, even though he was quiet. Thoughtful, kind in his own way. Loyal, perhaps, to a fault. Charming in that detached and distracted way.

Love would likely be a long way off in his own heart, but Gael didn't see a reason to drag Carlos through the mud. And yet the other man had quite firmly said he wasn't going to let Gael push him away. Which meant the only way to push him away would be to hurt him.

Something, again, he really did not care to do.

When he stepped back in the room, he quirked a brow at the now awake guardsman and smiled a little. Faint, but there- perhaps still a ghost of himself, but approaching normal all the same. "Yes, well there must be a first for everything, right?" He said, looking off to the side for a moment.

Finding a clean shirt, Gael pulled it on over his damp hair before slipping into a pair of boxers before he walked slowly over to Carlos as sat on the bed nest to him. "We should...talk," he said, slow and gentle despite the ominous nature of such a statement. "And...I should probably say thank you. I don't know if I ever said that about this whole...thing. But- thank you. You've had no reason to put yourself through this, and no reason to-to..." He hesitated, looking over at Carlos as the word sat on his tongue and he frowned a bit sadly.

"I'm sorry you've fallen for such a fuck up." He said, finally as he looked away. "Irony is, in another life....I could have easily loved you, you know. I just think my heart is...broken, now. That or I've just forgotten how to do it. Either way, it isn't fair to you, is it?" Looking back at Carlos, considered his options again- as he had in the shower. Saw the sad, prepared glint in Carlos' eyes and hesitated. Again.

"You're a good man, Carlos Sanchez. Much better than you give yourself credit for." He said finally. "I truly wish I could be what you need me to be."

It hurt as much, Carlos thought, as he expected it to. Hadyn told him he shouldn't give up on love - hell, even Ty made similar noises, now that he was in something like domestic bliss. But this was, really, how it always ended. For him, at least, and he looked away for a moment. There wasn't any need for Gael to see all the emotions on his face. The sadness was one thing, the bitterness and expectation of exactly this another.

They were a pair, he thought. Gael convinced he couldn't love anyone, Carlos convinced that no one could love him. And wasn't this right now proof of the latter? Gael's words were gentle and kind, he thought, but in the end it felt the same as Michel and the men who'd followed. It felt like when his mother had turned away from him when he'd been a teenager.

"I doubt we would have ever come together in another life, Gael," he finally said with a faint smile that was as painted on as any Gael had given him in recent weeks. "You wouldn't have wanted the same things." He reached out, laying his palm against Gael's shoulder for a moment before he let it drop. "I'm glad, I guess, that you think I'm a good man," he said. "But I've never needed you to be different than you are. I wish you saw that."

"You need one thing, if you admit it or not." Gael said in a surprisingly gentle manner as he looked at Carlos. He didn't imagine it was a ploy on Carlos' part, mostly because for all that Carlos was a cunning and devious man...'making someone fall for you' did not seem to be something in his wheel house. Instead, Gael thought as he watched the other man, there was resignation. Or....he couldn't put his finger on it.

"I do....care for you, you know that?" He said, turning slowly before move to slide one leg over Carlos' and straddling the man's lap. Reaching out he cupped Carlos' face in both his hands, searching the man's features for something to help explain this...vulnerability that Gael was so unaccustomed to seeing. It let him focus on someone else, too. Someone that had problems as real and desperate as his own... Giving him the excuse he needed to try to shove his own back into a closet and jam the shut.

"Wh-" He started, not even sure what question he had poised on the tip of his tongue as he looked over Carlos' face. But he wanted to erase that pain in Carlos, he thought. He wanted to wipe the slate clean. "Why do you look so....." hurt, pained, sad, he couldn't put a finger on the word he wanted, so he left it hanging in the air as his eyes searched over Carlos' face.

If Gael hadn't pinned him, Carlos thought a bit ruefully, he probably would have bolted. It was one thing, after all, for Hadyn to know almost exactly what went on in his head - Hadyn was practically his father. It was another for the lover he'd been trying to pull out of despair to suddenly notice that Carlos had his own. A line formed between his brows as Gael's hands framed his face. "Do you?" he murmured. "Care about me?" Of course, he knew Gael cared some for him - he would never have fallen in love with him, he didn't think, if Gael was completely indifferent to him. He wouldn't have seen the parts of Gael that had made his teenage crush blossom into something deeper.

What did Gael think he needed? He wondered as his hands came up to bracket Gael's narrow hips. Too narrow now, he was too thin, but there was, at least, a brightness there in his eyes that Carlos hadn't seen in weeks. It would relieve him, if those eyes weren't looking at him as if they could see straight into his soul.

If he wasn't, Carlos thought, looking at him as if he wanted to take the pain away. It wasn't fair; no one but the Kagans tended to even notice it. Not even his brothers and sisters anymore, and he'd always been too proud to let his mother see what she'd done. Felipe...had never cared, really. He must be losing his touch if Gael could see it. It was always there, just never allowed so close to the surface. He shook his head a little. "It's nothing, carino," he said with the same crooked smile he'd given Gael a hundred times before. "Nothing important."

He was lying, Gael thought as his thumb lightly traced the curve of Carlos' cheek. He didn't think Carlos had known Gael's skills with perception, but then why would he have? If he had, he wouldn't be sat there trying to lie about something as if it were nothing. And Gael was caught, between wanting to ease that pain to knowing that perhaps he couldn't do that. At least, not as he was right now.

"Yes," he said, answering Carlos' earlier question about caring. "Would you like me to count the ways? I could..."

Still, he didn't think Carlos needed him to. Or maybe would want him to. Either way, though, he needed the man to know he cared. Truly. "Am I a terrible person? That you would doubt such a thing? Does someone need to love a person to care?"

It was a consequence of trying to keep their relationship casual, Carlos supposed. He hadn't known how perceptive Gael was, though perhaps he should have - given his eldest sister was friends with Gael's. But then, he'd distanced himself, really, from all but the youngest two Sanchezes. Really, he thought, it was only Ali he regularly kept in contact with, and that was because she was only slightly more acceptable to Felipe than Carlos was.

He sighed a little, wrapping his arm around Gael's waist. "Of course you don't need to love me to care about me," he said. "And I wouldn't love you if you were a terrible person." His lips tightened a bit and he let out a short laugh. "I've got a tendency towards self-doubt," he said dryly and a little flippantly. That came closer to answering Gael's question about why he looked so...

Well, Carlos didn't know the word for it, either.

"You? Self-doubt?" Gael asked, sliding his hands down from Carlos' face and round behind his neck. His arms rested casually on the other man's shoulders as he regarded this new detail. Self-doubt? It was insane to believe, and yet made complete sense in the same breath.

"You shouldn't," he said after a moment, looking away before shrugging. "For whatever good it does for me to say so. You're kind, and loving.
And people love you, and if they don't they're fools. Myself included...but we already knew that about me." He said, smiling a little as he said as much. "You've probably got so much more to you than I even know... I guess I'm not that wonderful of a friend after all."

But, he thought, maybe they could start over.Be...friends, or something else. Something more. They could be, he thought, something else entirely.

"Are you hungry?" He asked, looking at the clock next to his bed. It was late enough that dinner should be a thing. He could use the excuse, he supposed, to do something he suspected Carlos wished they did more often- go out and enjoy each other's company.

It wasn't as if he advertised it, Carlos thought with a slight smile, or that it extended to all areas of his life. No, it was mostly just...people. Relationships. When it came to his skills and talents, he was entirely confident in himself.

He wasn't sure that most people thought much about him one way or the other, Carlos thought as he reached out to touch Gael's chin and turn him back to face him. Oh a few, of course. The Kagans, of course. Ali and Matt, he supposed, and Vicki and Chris. Then there was Gael, he thought as he looked at the other man. "I don't know," he said as a mischievous glint returned to his eyes briefly. "There are certainly some things about me you know better than most people." He'd been very good at following the rules, so really - the two of them had mostly spent their time in bedrooms. Well, other rooms, too.

"I could eat," he said, dropping his hand from Gael's chin. The mischief hadn't entirely faded from his eyes. "Plus, then Sarah can be both excited and horrified that you aren't here when she gets home from melting metal at work."

Edited 2017-08-02 21:57 (UTC)

"I missed my calling in life, I should have been a prostitute, darling, I'm terribly good at sex." He mused, returning Carlos' smile as the man held his chin there. "I could probably make a fortune, if I started now and kept myself in good health. Might have to consider a career change. Or maybe porn, I could probably do well with porn as well."

Leaning in he stole a soft kiss from Carlos before he pulled back and pushed himself up to his feet. Carlos might have still be dressed, but well...he needed to get his jeans. He probably needed to change out of the boxers and into briefs...if only because his jeans would fit better, and his boxers would not bunch up uncomfortably. It only too a moment to change though- boxer briefs and jeans. He grabbed a pair of shoes, and sock before looked over at Carlos who was watching him.

"Darling," he said, after getting his shoes on. "What do you care to eat? You know, there is this nice little pizza place over in the Heart's district. It isn't terribly busy this time of day, and we could just talk. Or...eat. In silence."

"Well, you are terribly good at sex," Carlos said as he leaned into the kiss until Gael pulled away - and then he watched Gael move around the room. He leaned back on his hands, tilting his head to one side with an amused and appreciative look. Gael made it easy to slip back into their usual, he thought, though he knew it wasn't going to be quite the same. "You could start with artist's model, unless Sarah broke tradition and didn't tease someone I was sleeping with with quotes from an awful old movie." Honestly, he wasn't sure what the appeal of Titanic was.

It was possible he was too gay for it.

"I think we could probably try to find something to talk about," he said, though, as he stood up and smoothed the t-shirt that was a bit rumpled from sleep. It wasn't as though they never talked, but it tended to be a few minutes at a time, when they were sleepy and sated and about to drop into sleep. "But if you'd rather stare soulfully into my eyes, who am I to stop you?"

"Cheri, she's decided you need owe us a portrait of me like, and I quote, 'one of your french girls.' Which, I was reminded, had something to do with a certain old movie I've been made to watch countless times." He said, reaching out to take Carlos' hand pulling him toward the door.

"And good, I've never been good at quiet. Even if I do so long getting lost in those green eyes. They are rather striking, really. Not quite like mine. Not when compared to, say, my father's. Leon's eyes were striking...bright." He said, leading Carlos out of the apartment. He managed to keep up the small talk as they walked, dipping his head off to the side as they discussed the weather, the mood of the deck, and random things that popped up.

And when they arrived of Val's Pizza, they managed to even agree on a pizza without much effort before he smirked as they sat down. "Shall we play a game? 20 questions, with a few rules. You have to answer truthfully, unless you use one of three passes that you have. You can only ask one question at a time, no multiple questions in one. Simple rules, yes? You can even go first."

"Mm. Yes, she used that line of Greg Matthews too, and you can imagine how that went over. At least you speak French." And was far less likely to try to kill Sarah Kagan with his brain, really, than Greg. "But thankfully, are not a girl. I wouldn't have been nearly as interested if you had been."

Though probably a Gaelle Shaw would have been very pretty, along the lines of his sister. "Green eyes are a mutation, I hear. But my mother has the same ones." Very light, like peridots, those less immediately striking with Bethany's blond hair and pale skin than with the coloring Carlos had inherited from his Mexican side. "I like yours, though," he said as he followed Gael down the steps. "Blue and a little green." Gold around the iris - not that Carlos had spent time staring into Gael's eyes, and learning the color.

They'd picked up a bottle of red wine on the way - though, probably, Carlos thought, Gael didn't really need more alcohol in him right now - and he raised a brow as he poured chianti into two glasses. "I'm familiar with it." Usually played it with equally awkward dates, though it had been a year or two. Was this an awkward date, he wondered with a bit of a smile, or just Gael feeling a little guilty that for all the time they'd spent together, they didn't know each other entirely well.

He took a sip of his wine and tilted his head to one side. It was quiet, as Gael had promised. "When did you decide you wanted to act?"

"Oh, he starts easy." Gael said, laughing softly as he lifted the glass of wine to his lips and sipped it. "Well...I was four, and my father helped me learn all the lines to the Princess Bride, and even played Princess Buttercup for me. I was terrible, but the potential was there." He grinned at that, before leaning back against the booth he was in.

"After that- there was singing and dancing. I took a little ballet when I was younger, but quickly moved on to modern dance. I've been in love with it ever since." He said, glancing to the side as someone who looked vaguely familiar sat at a near by table with another person and each gave the pair a curious look.

"Who was your first love?" He asked, knowing it was perhaps, a bit early for the hard questions....but Gael didn't see a need to pull a punch either.

Carlos laughed a bit at the picture of Gael as Wesley and picked up a slice of the bread the waitress had added to the picture. He saw the pair, too, and half-recognized them - they were from either his Suit or Gael's - before he blinked over at Gael.

"That's a hardball right away," he commented. There was a little flicker, maybe a slight darkening of his expression for a moment before he ripped the bread in half and dipped it in oil. "I had a few harmless teenage crushes, but first one I did something about was Michel Durand. I was sixteen, he was seventeen. It lasted about a year." It lasted about two weeks after Felipe Sanchez found out, strictly speaking. "He got most of my firsts, though," he added with a slight smile and a wicked glance towards the pair at the next table, "I wasn't confident enough to tie him to a bed. Michel definitely would have found that too intense."

He'd found Carlos too intense in general, especially after he'd been disowned - though Michel had spent a couple days trying to convince him to switch to Hearts.

He waited until Gael took another sip of wine before he took his turn. He was fairly sure he knew who Gael's first love was, and fairly sure he didn't want to bring Patrick into the conversation. "What makes you the happiest?" He asked instead. It was, in it's way, just as much a hard question as who Carlos had loved first.

Edited 2017-08-03 11:27 (UTC)

"What can I say? I don't believe in pulling punches." Gael mused, before he listened to Carlos' answer carefully. Whoever this Michel was, he was an idiot. For one- being tied to a bed was delicious, and two? Well, Carlos was just a complete package, wrapped up in a soft spoken body.

"Michel sounds like an idiot, if you were to ask me." Gael said, glancing over the the gawkers again. Three months ago, he'd probably have reached across the table and pulled Carlos into a lewd, steamy kiss before openly smirking at the others in a sort of smug confidence. Today, at least, he thought better of it. Who cared, really?

Looking back at Carlos he smirked, before looking thoughtful as he propped his chin on the palm of his hand. "What makes me happiest?" He repeated, before thinking about it for a long moment. "I don't know, really. But the things that come to mind involve singing and dancing....at Mooseknuckle. Being the center of everyone's attention. I wish I had an excuse for being an attention whore, but I was never denied love, affection or attention at home. I just always want it, crave it. Sort of like a drug. After that? Mm." He paused a moment, thinking on it before a softer smile crossed his features. "Well, laying in bed with someone. No sex, no 'hurry up and get it over with'; just...laying there. Close, their head against my chest- or mine against theirs. Listening to their heartbeat as they drift off to sleep."

Well, one question down 19 to go. Which meant of course that he had to ask another....which he wasn't sure where to go with it. Well, when it doubt- "Favorite sex position? I mean, we've never really gotten into it, all things considered."

Edited 2017-08-05 22:26 (UTC)

"Michel was...well, a teenager, so probably a little bit of an idiot." He'd moved towards the Heart outpost not long after they'd broken up, which had both enabled Carlos to put him out of his mind - but also, when he thought of him, allowed him to idealize Michel Durand. He never had to deal with him other than as a rather pretty teenage boy.

He ignored the gawkers, instead leaning his chin on his hand as he listened to Gael with a bit of a smile on his face. Well, there was no doubt that Gael loved attention, almost as much as Carlos usually shunned it. He, personally, could never be any kind of performer. He sang well enough to pull it off, honestly, and in his teenaged years had played guitar decently. But the idea of people watching like that was an anathema to him; his challenges drew spectators occasionally, and that was plenty.

"I like that part too," he said, though. "Just lying there together." Not just with Gael, though it was certainly part of why he was in love with him now. With his other lovers, too, it had always been a gentle counterpoint to the sharp roughness of the sex he tended to prefer.

The waitress arrived with their pizza moments after Gael asked his question and Carlos could tell, from the way she bobbled it slightly before setting it on the stand, that she'd heard it perfectly well. He decided to spare her the answer and waited until she'd walked away, picking up a slice of pizza and sprinkling it with cheese and peppers before he said anything. "Most of the time it depends on who I'm with, and what they like," he said as blandly as if they were talking about the weather. "But I have to admit I like bending a lover over and taking him from behind like that." Something he'd done with Gael...well, more than once, including one time in his shower he had pretty fond memories of.

As for his question, he considered it as he took a bite of pizza. He had more innocuous questions he wanted to ask, but Gael had started them down a theme and he might as well stick with it. Besides, possibly would scare the gawkers away. "Favorite sex toy?" He asked with a raised brow. "I mean, we've used a large selection, so I don't think I could predict here."

Gael was pretty certain that scandalous behavior was a deeply seeded part of his reputation. His father even probably knew about it and in order to avoid what was likely to be an awkward conversation- said nothing about it. Still he smirked at the waitress as she blushed a bright red and walked away, and looked back at Carlos.

He had to admit, he rather enjoyed being pushed down against the desk in the man's rooms. It was...well, thrilling. Not to mention how much deeper and harder the man could thrust. Of course, he was digressing now. Even if his question made him pause and sit up a little more as he had to think about it.

"Just...one?" He asked, chewing on his bottom lip a little as he thought it over, foot tapping on the floor as he bounced his head. "Er, mm....I....would have to go with the rope. You can do so much with it. Tying someone up, Tying them down, tying up the cock or breast, I mean the thing literally has no end to what you can do. Except...except actually fucking someone with it, but if you tried hard enough you could probably even figure that one out."

Gael took a piece of pizza, putting it on his own plate before adding a few peppers. He was tending to his food when he asked his next question, "what's your favorite food?"

Gael Shaw -|- Deck -|- 8 & 16

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject