Sunflowers
And they were all yellow
It all commences one day in the middle of spring, around the end of April and beginning of May. William's in the Cobra's tour bus kitchenette making himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when his ears pick up the sound of a pair of feet shuffling across the floor, accompanied by low sniffs. Curiosity gets the best of him and thus he walks out into the main area, catching sight of Gabe, but not in his usual smug posture.
His hair is sticking out in every angle possible and he's wearing nothing but a pair of white boxers and a grey blanket wrapped tightly around his frame.
“Bilvy,” he begins but is abruptly cut off by a sneeze emitting from his nostrils, “Bilvy, estoy enfermo.”
There's something William has failed to notice before; something glowing in Gabe's brown eyes, and it's not the tears brimming his eyes as a result of him sneezing. Whatever it is, that something causes fluttering in his chest.
“Take care of me, please.”
The pout plastered on the older one's face makes it impossible for William to decline.
~
The second time it happens—that god-awful albeit pleasing flutter in his stomach—is when William's in his own tour bus, laptop resting on his thighs and Coldplay is blasting through his ears via his iPod earplugs, and Gabe comes skipping in the front entrance, screaming in a sing-song manner, “¿Dónde estás, Beckett?”
“¡Estoy, uh . . .” William pauses and presses his eyes shut, quickly skimming his brain for the accurate words; he knows any grammatical mistakes will earn him another never-ending Spanish lesson from the older man, “¡Estoy en el sofá!”
He feels Gabe slumping down next to him before he can even look up from the brightly shining screen, and right then—at the exact second he looks up and their eyes lock—the tingling sensation is there again. “Muy bien, hijo,” Gabe grins, ruffling William's hair as if he's a child and not merely five years younger than himself.
The grin makes William change his mind and actually want a Spanish lesson with Gabe; a lesson on the names of each and ever part of the body, perhaps.
~
The third time takes place on a rainy Sunday in the end of June.
They have a couple of days off tour and Gabe and William are sitting on the curb outside William's apartment complex, feet bare and trousers rolled up, waiting for Adam who never shows up when the sky decides to crack open and rain suddenly starts pouring down around them.
Being Gabe Saporta, he refuses to move inside and William doesn't feel like sitting inside all alone when he could be outside with Gabe instead, rain or no rain, so he decides not to argue; just shuts up and stare down at their—or more accurately Gabe's—feet.
“You have weird toes,” he states, circumspectly kicking one of Gabe's feet with his own.
“Shut it, Beckett, they're sexy and you know it.”
The younger man glances up at Gabe's face and, anew, locks eyes with him. The skin on his upper arms is adorned with droplets, so it's all cold raindrops against hot, sweaty skin and that goddamn fluttering is tormenting his insides, and, yeah, okay, maybe his toes are a tad too sexy to be, well, toes.
~
The fourth time occurs on a lukewarm evening—or night, to be exactly correct—in the middle of July.
It's fifteen minutes to midnight when William is carefully shook awake by a wide-eyed Gabe who says, “Quick, get dressed,” before disappearing into the corner of William's bedroom—for he is spending the weekend at William's before heading home to Jersey for a quick visit—opening a drawer and shuffling through its contents.
Slowly, so he won't get dizzy from the sudden rush of blood to the head, William sits up in bed, confusedly staring at the other man's hunched back, “What's going on?” he asks, rubbing the corner of his eye with the palm of his hand. “Is everything alri—are you alright?”
Gabe shuts the drawer with a small thud and turns to look at William, an off-white wax candle in his hand, “Yes, yes, everything is alright—just hurry up!”
When he leaves the room William sits still for a mere second, perplexed as fuck, before getting out from under the covers and grabbing the closest piece of garment he finds in the mess on the floor beneath his feet. From the kitchenette adjacent to their bedroom he hears Gabe's bare feet strolling back and forth over the wooden flooring; he hears drawers and cupboards being opened before slammed shut again, before a head adorned with brown, messy hair peeps in the door to look at William.
“Well, come on then! I don't want to miss it.” There's a smile playing on his lips as he speaks and his eyes are glowing at William even through the dark.
“Are shoes necessary?” William questions as he buttons his trousers, glancing at Gabe whose leaning against the door's frame, smirk embellishing his beautifully tanned features and God, William's knees nearly give out under him.
~
The fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth time all takes place the same night, when they are running through a mass of yellow.
“Gabe, fuck, will you slow down,” William hisses as he is dragged bare feet after Gabe by one of his hands through a field of sunflowers, “My soles are killing me.”
“Shh, we're almost there,” Gabe responds and strokes his thumb over William's knuckles because he knows it will make him feel better. A slight gust gently whips his hair into his eyes, but it doesn't matter for they have already arrived at their destination, so Gabe fishes the wax candle out of nowhere—which is really only his back pocket—and lights it.
“I still don't under—”
“Shh,” Gabe interrupts him and hands over their only source of light so he can hold one of his hands in front of William's mouth while looking intently at his watch.
“But—”
“Shh!”
So he shuts his mouth and squints his eyes in order to admire the beautiful sight around him—what he can see through the dark, anyway—while waiting for whatever Gabe could possibly want to show him out in a field of yellow in the middle of the night. Their hands are still entwined tightly; Wiliam wouldn't want to let go for anything in the entire world, not only because he's somewhat afraid of the dark, but because it's Gabe.
His beautiful, eccentric Gabe.
“William,” Gabe whispers, to which William responds with an equally as silently whispered syllable. “Listen,” he whispers, “Open your ears and shut your eyes and let this all in and fucking listen because this is all for you.”
Before William can even open his mouth to argue Gabe is speaking anew, “You—you are fucking golden, dude, okay? You're golden. So listen carefully now; pay attention to every sound reaching your ears.
“And close your eyes.”
And William does as he says; shuts his eyes and tries to open his ears as much as humanly possible and when he finally hears what he's supposed to hear, he wants to cry. He wants to jump at Gabe; wrap his arms around him tightly and shower him in I love you's, but most of all he wants to cry.
He wants to cry over the beauty and cells and veins and tissues Gabe consists of, and he wants to cry because Gabe is holding his hand in a loving way as opposed to a friendly way.
But most of all he wants to cry because this is far more than he could ever deserve. For when he closed his eyes and opened his ears and tried to listen, he heard music.
Melodies, guitars, vocals, drums, and words—oh man, those words.
When Gabe glances at William through the wax candle's flame, he sees tears forming in his eyes, but there's a smile on the younger boy's lips so Gabe doesn't worry at all—no, he merely finishes off the song singing,
“Look at the stars; look how they shine for you, and all the things that you do.”
And tears begin pouring down William's rosy cheeks as they engage in a whole new range of intimacy.
His hair is sticking out in every angle possible and he's wearing nothing but a pair of white boxers and a grey blanket wrapped tightly around his frame.
“Bilvy,” he begins but is abruptly cut off by a sneeze emitting from his nostrils, “Bilvy, estoy enfermo.”
There's something William has failed to notice before; something glowing in Gabe's brown eyes, and it's not the tears brimming his eyes as a result of him sneezing. Whatever it is, that something causes fluttering in his chest.
“Take care of me, please.”
The pout plastered on the older one's face makes it impossible for William to decline.
~
The second time it happens—that god-awful albeit pleasing flutter in his stomach—is when William's in his own tour bus, laptop resting on his thighs and Coldplay is blasting through his ears via his iPod earplugs, and Gabe comes skipping in the front entrance, screaming in a sing-song manner, “¿Dónde estás, Beckett?”
“¡Estoy, uh . . .” William pauses and presses his eyes shut, quickly skimming his brain for the accurate words; he knows any grammatical mistakes will earn him another never-ending Spanish lesson from the older man, “¡Estoy en el sofá!”
He feels Gabe slumping down next to him before he can even look up from the brightly shining screen, and right then—at the exact second he looks up and their eyes lock—the tingling sensation is there again. “Muy bien, hijo,” Gabe grins, ruffling William's hair as if he's a child and not merely five years younger than himself.
The grin makes William change his mind and actually want a Spanish lesson with Gabe; a lesson on the names of each and ever part of the body, perhaps.
~
The third time takes place on a rainy Sunday in the end of June.
They have a couple of days off tour and Gabe and William are sitting on the curb outside William's apartment complex, feet bare and trousers rolled up, waiting for Adam who never shows up when the sky decides to crack open and rain suddenly starts pouring down around them.
Being Gabe Saporta, he refuses to move inside and William doesn't feel like sitting inside all alone when he could be outside with Gabe instead, rain or no rain, so he decides not to argue; just shuts up and stare down at their—or more accurately Gabe's—feet.
“You have weird toes,” he states, circumspectly kicking one of Gabe's feet with his own.
“Shut it, Beckett, they're sexy and you know it.”
The younger man glances up at Gabe's face and, anew, locks eyes with him. The skin on his upper arms is adorned with droplets, so it's all cold raindrops against hot, sweaty skin and that goddamn fluttering is tormenting his insides, and, yeah, okay, maybe his toes are a tad too sexy to be, well, toes.
~
The fourth time occurs on a lukewarm evening—or night, to be exactly correct—in the middle of July.
It's fifteen minutes to midnight when William is carefully shook awake by a wide-eyed Gabe who says, “Quick, get dressed,” before disappearing into the corner of William's bedroom—for he is spending the weekend at William's before heading home to Jersey for a quick visit—opening a drawer and shuffling through its contents.
Slowly, so he won't get dizzy from the sudden rush of blood to the head, William sits up in bed, confusedly staring at the other man's hunched back, “What's going on?” he asks, rubbing the corner of his eye with the palm of his hand. “Is everything alri—are you alright?”
Gabe shuts the drawer with a small thud and turns to look at William, an off-white wax candle in his hand, “Yes, yes, everything is alright—just hurry up!”
When he leaves the room William sits still for a mere second, perplexed as fuck, before getting out from under the covers and grabbing the closest piece of garment he finds in the mess on the floor beneath his feet. From the kitchenette adjacent to their bedroom he hears Gabe's bare feet strolling back and forth over the wooden flooring; he hears drawers and cupboards being opened before slammed shut again, before a head adorned with brown, messy hair peeps in the door to look at William.
“Well, come on then! I don't want to miss it.” There's a smile playing on his lips as he speaks and his eyes are glowing at William even through the dark.
“Are shoes necessary?” William questions as he buttons his trousers, glancing at Gabe whose leaning against the door's frame, smirk embellishing his beautifully tanned features and God, William's knees nearly give out under him.
~
The fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth time all takes place the same night, when they are running through a mass of yellow.
“Gabe, fuck, will you slow down,” William hisses as he is dragged bare feet after Gabe by one of his hands through a field of sunflowers, “My soles are killing me.”
“Shh, we're almost there,” Gabe responds and strokes his thumb over William's knuckles because he knows it will make him feel better. A slight gust gently whips his hair into his eyes, but it doesn't matter for they have already arrived at their destination, so Gabe fishes the wax candle out of nowhere—which is really only his back pocket—and lights it.
“I still don't under—”
“Shh,” Gabe interrupts him and hands over their only source of light so he can hold one of his hands in front of William's mouth while looking intently at his watch.
“But—”
“Shh!”
So he shuts his mouth and squints his eyes in order to admire the beautiful sight around him—what he can see through the dark, anyway—while waiting for whatever Gabe could possibly want to show him out in a field of yellow in the middle of the night. Their hands are still entwined tightly; Wiliam wouldn't want to let go for anything in the entire world, not only because he's somewhat afraid of the dark, but because it's Gabe.
His beautiful, eccentric Gabe.
“William,” Gabe whispers, to which William responds with an equally as silently whispered syllable. “Listen,” he whispers, “Open your ears and shut your eyes and let this all in and fucking listen because this is all for you.”
Before William can even open his mouth to argue Gabe is speaking anew, “You—you are fucking golden, dude, okay? You're golden. So listen carefully now; pay attention to every sound reaching your ears.
“And close your eyes.”
And William does as he says; shuts his eyes and tries to open his ears as much as humanly possible and when he finally hears what he's supposed to hear, he wants to cry. He wants to jump at Gabe; wrap his arms around him tightly and shower him in I love you's, but most of all he wants to cry.
He wants to cry over the beauty and cells and veins and tissues Gabe consists of, and he wants to cry because Gabe is holding his hand in a loving way as opposed to a friendly way.
But most of all he wants to cry because this is far more than he could ever deserve. For when he closed his eyes and opened his ears and tried to listen, he heard music.
Melodies, guitars, vocals, drums, and words—oh man, those words.
When Gabe glances at William through the wax candle's flame, he sees tears forming in his eyes, but there's a smile on the younger boy's lips so Gabe doesn't worry at all—no, he merely finishes off the song singing,
“Look at the stars; look how they shine for you, and all the things that you do.”
And tears begin pouring down William's rosy cheeks as they engage in a whole new range of intimacy.