mitsubishievo | Champagne for my real friends [for Gabriel]

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Champagne for my real friends [for Gabriel]

He didn't go out much anymore, but when he did, it was with two purposes in mind: one was a sale, because he was still a dealer from time to time, and second was for people watching. Tonight was a twofer. He'd done the deal in the alley behind the bar, and now he was in, at the bar, watching people. Someone had bought him a drink, because he was married and not dead, and Kavinsky had taken it and immediately moved away from the guy that did it.

Now, he was circling. He'd seen Gabriel Harkin when he'd walked in the door, but swooping in like a hawk seemed unkind. So he waited until Gabriel seemed settled, was obviously alone, and then he settled himself beside him at the bar, grinning like a fiend.

"Hey stranger," he said. "You come here often?"

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Gabriel rolled his eyes as soon as Kavinsky appeared across from him, but a little grin tugged at his mouth despite himself.

"That your go to line? Think it's a bit dated."

He smiled and took a sip from his glass - a dark beer. He wasn't in a hurry to get drunk tonight.

"I thought I saw you over at the bar when I came in. And yes, I do come here often. I don't see you much, though."

"It has absolutely worked for me probably about thirty times before now. You're in luck. I'm a monogamous married man so I'm not after your dick." Gabriel was cute, about his age, and Kavinsky absolutely would have flirted with him more seriously if he wasn't occasionally hysterical about his sexuality.

"It's not my usual haunt. Someone was buying me a drink."

"Uh huh. Well, at least the trip was worth your while." Gabriel shook his head and took another drink of his stout. That Kavinsky was married and monogamous seemed completely incongruous with the boy he first met in the church, but there he was.

"Very much," Kavinsky acknowledged with a broad, easy grin. Not only because he'd made the deal--and gotten a bit extra for the trouble of meeting in public--but because he'd gotten a free drink and was talking to someone he considered a friend.

"How's life treating you? Come on, we haven't talked in a while." He gave Gabriel a bit of a nudge. "Tell Satan how life is."

Gabriel rolled his eyes and gave Kavinsky a little kick under the table. He resisted the urge to touch the little silver cross he wore under his clothes. "Neil and I sort of... stopped, a while back."

He didn't know what else to call it. Breaking up didn't sound right. They were still friends, they still saw each other.

"And I'm... seeing someone, sort of."

"Sort of stopped?" Kavinsky questioned, in light of the second statement, that Gabriel was sort of seeing someone, and it clearly wasn't his nervous little friend. Kavinsky didn't know Neil, but they'd seen each other a couple times, the most significant being when Gabriel had had his Easter party.

"Let's start there, and then you can tell me about the new guy."

He sat back, looking at his glass. "We broke it off in October. He uhm-- he messed around with someone else and the whole attempt at an apology was all about making him feel better, and--"

Gabriel shrugged, shaking his head a bit. "If he wanted to sleep with other people, fine. I wasn't about to hold him back from that, but I couldn't keep doing that."

Kavinsky considered it. It had been--what--nearly a year since the last time he'd made a mistake like that, and he remembered the mess of an apology it had been to Newt. But he also thinks of the first time he'd made a mess of things, and how Newt couldn't stand to be around him for nearly a month.

"But sort of? I mean, either you cut off rides on the dick train or you didn't, my man." Maybe it wasn't so simple. But that's how things had worked out with him and Newt.

"We're not sleeping together anymore. We're just friends," he corrected. He sipped his drink. He decided, right then, that he wouldn't tell Kavinsky about the whole... confession. That was private, between him and Neil, and it wasn't the kind of laundry he felt comfortable airing.

Kavinsky nodded. He and Jack had made it work, that friendship after everything, but it had taken a lot of work and he still loved him in ways he probably shouldn't. He didn't air that to Gabriel, who didn't need to know that it was rough to break up with someone but try to still be friends with them. He was living it, after all.

He could tell Gabriel wasn't mentioning something about the break up--Kavinsky didn't think it was just about a little messing around and a shoddy apology. "So tell me about the new guy."

"He's one of the curators of an art gallery and he teaches at the university," he says with a small, fond smile. God, but he has a terrible soft spot for Anthony and there isn't much he can do about it. "I met him last year and we've just sort of... fallen in. I don't think it's very serious."

He knows Anthony would prefer not to think of it as anything serious, anyway. Gabriel doesn't know how to feel about it all, too frightened to protest or to risk rocking the boat too hard.

A working man and professor who Gabriel had fallen in with, but it wasn't serious. Right. Kavinsky had been there too, much earlier in his life, and so he had some perspective on it. He could understand how it would be a big change, maybe even a relief, to deal with a fucking adult. Neil seemed like a nice kid, but he also looked a little like he was walking on eggshells the last time Kavinsky had seen him--and that had been at a house party.

"Congrats on your sugar daddy," he said blithely, sipping his drink. "He buy you anything nice yet?"

Gabriel nearly chokes on his drink.

"He isn't," he insists, face going hot at the idea. He goes so far as to kick Kavinsky under the table in his attempt to defend Anthony's honor. But even as he does, he thinks back to Anthony so casually mentioning buying him a suit. "Fuck's sake."

"What? There's no shame in being someone's baby," Kavinsky said, laughing and shaking his head. He kicked him back, gently, and grinned at him. And, besides, Gabriel hadn't answered the question, which probably meant he had.

"I've done that shit. Just don't lean into it too hard."

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "I'm not leaning into anything," he insisted, blushing a bit. "It's-- whatever it is. Certainly haven't given it any kind of name. And he isn't that."

He fidgeted with his beer a bit and, God help him, he swore he felt hotter. "Though I don't think he'd mind it, honestly. Much less than I would."

Kavinsky waggled his fingers at Gabriel. He could make out that blush even in the half-light of the bar, so claiming there was no leaning in sounded like a lie. Kavinsky understood that too; he'd gone for ages refusing to define how he and Al fit together, had convinced himself for a long time that he and Peter were only friends, all of it.

But there was that fidget, that wrinkle in Gabriel's eyebrows. Kavinsky grinned as well. "Is your pride wounded if you let someone take care of you?"

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Champagne for my real friends [for Gabriel]

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