Work Text:
It hasn’t been Bill’s night. He’s a hot mess - his hair is ratty and tangled, tumbling over his shoulders in heaps of unkept grossness. There are bags under his eyes that can be seen from space and according to Sisky, who is an asshole and usually shouldn’t be trusted but is unnecessarily honest about this particular thing for particular reasons, he looks skinnier than usual. He looks like death warmed up, and yet.
He’s still letting Carden drag him to a party.
It’s not like he hadn’t considered arguing with him, because he had. He looks like shit, feels like shit, and is frankly acting kind of shitty because the brand of awful he’s feeling turns him into a little bit of an asshole.
He can hear the music from outside the building, and, okay. That’s Midtown playing. Not all is lost - clearly, whoever is in charge of the stereo has some taste. That makes the night somewhat salvageable. Even if he has to find a bedroom and pretend to have passed out just so he can take a breather and listen to his favorite band, it’s still not totally bad.
He keeps reminding himself of this as Carden drags him up three flights of stairs, because the building doesn’t have an elevator, and has to breathe in and out for a minute before he decks Carden in the face the second they step into the hallway on the third floor.
“Who’s hosting this thing anyway?” he asks, disgruntled, as Carden manhandles him down the hall.
“Just a guy I know,” he says vaguely in a cheerful voice, because he’s an asshole and Bill hates him. He’s got a grip on Bill’s upper shoulder that’s hard enough to bruise, which - fair enough - isn’t hard to do. But still. “Look, just relax , William. That’s why we’re here; you’ve been all stressed and shit lately. You need to learn to just chill out.”
“I’m so chill,” Bill tells him scathingly. Or, he means for it to be scathing. It really comes out like a pout, but Bill can’t help that. He’s naturally pouty. Whatever, Sisky tells him it’s cute. It’s mostly just to make fun of him but Bill takes it to heart on purpose.
“We’re here!” Carden announces with a grin. The door number is 311, and Bill suddenly hates that number. He is not dressed for a party. His hair is not done, his face is not done, his entire demeanor is not done. This is not party time. “You gonna knock, or are you gonna glare at the door all night?”
Bill squints at Carden like he’s stupid. “You really think they’ll hear it over this noise?” Bill can feel the bass in his chest. It’s fucking loud , loud enough that he’s surprised the party hasn’t already been shut down. It’s the type of shindig where you’d be lucky to hear someone yelling over the noise.
“Dude, just knock!” Carden bobs his head up and down, gesturing toward the door.
Bill does not knock. Bill gives Carden a flat look and turns the handle, opening the door with no fanfare. Carden, for his part, doesn’t seem to care about Bill’s show of rebellion. He just bounds in and yells “ eyy! I brought Bill!”
Bill resigns himself to a night of being bothered by people, and getting shit for how awful he looks. The music is turned down suddenly, and Bill has a split second to sigh in relief before “ - I do not know who that Bill guy is but I still call dibs - oh, what the fuck, man?”
The guy who was speaking had turned away to glare at the tall, reedy person now laughing behind the silenced stereo set up.
Carden’s stopped in the middle of a step forward, and his head snaps back so he can look at Bill with the biggest shit-eating grin Bill’s ever seen on his face. Bill would be mad, except - he knows that voice.
His eyes go to the person who had been speaking, taking in the long legs and dark curls and laughing mouth that had been frowning at the dj just a couple seconds before but is now just grinning at Bill cheekily.
“I guess I’ve introduced myself in the shittiest way possible,” the guy says cheerfully, waving over at Bill. “But anyway, I’m Gabe. You should come over here so I can flirt with you in a normal and not creepy way.”
He doesn’t know how to say “I definitely know who you are” because that’s Gabe Saporta from fucking Midtown, and he’s just standing dumbly, watching as Gabe’s smile starts to dim a little. Carden huffs from his place at Bill’s side, and he grabs Bill’s arm again.
“This is Bill,” Carden says to Gabe Saporta as he drags Bill over. People are all around them, laughing quietly at the scene happening before them. “He’s a big fan of your band, so he’s acting kind of dumb right now, but he’s totally down and into whatever you might be into.” He pulls Bill around the couch and kind of shoves him into Gabe’s lap, making sure he stays with his hands on Bill’s shoulders. “Stay. Flirt. Be a good boy. That sort of thing.” With that, he cheerfully skips off to be an asshole somewhere else.
Bill is left sprawled over Gabe Saporta’s lap, one leg laid over Gabe’s legs, his ass half on Gabe’s knee and the other leg tangled in one of Gabe’s. His torso has been shoved into Gabe’s left side, and now that the silence has returned as Carden is no longer taking his attention, Bill notices that Gabe’s arms have snaked around his middle. Gabe . What the fuck has his night become?
“ Are you gonna be a good boy for Daddy?” Gabe asks him with an eyebrow wiggle, and Bill’s not entirely sure what’s happening. He’s saved from answering by a girl with dark hair.
“For the love of christ , Gabe, do you have to be such a creep?” she groans from an armchair a couple feet away, and the group of people around them start laughing.
“It was meant to be a joke!” Gabe protests, but he’s still wrapped snugly around Bill and against his better judgement, he rests his arms over Gabe’s, who pauses in his arguing to beam at Bill. “You got that I was joking, right?”
Bill smiles weakly at him, and then a little more genuinely when Gabe squeezes his middle. “Sure, whatever you say, man.”
Gabe pouts, but the girl laughs at him. “I like this one; he can stay,” she decides.
“Thanks, Vicky,” Gabe says flatly, but he turns back to Bill with that same beaming smile and continues with, “So, tell me about yourself, Bill.” And it doesn’t seem to matter to Gabe that Bill looks like shit and feels like shit. Gabe genuinely doesn’t seem to care, and the longer they talk the longer Gabe hangs on to every word he says. An hour later and Gabe has professed his undying love. An hour after that and Gabe has told him fervently that they were “ obviously meant to meet. It’s like fate. And who fucks with fate, you know? ”
Bill will question the whys and hows of Carden dragging him to a party featuring fucking Gabe Saporta later. You know, after kissing fucking Gabe Saporta. and maybe fucking fucking Gabe Saporta. Whatever. He’ll see how it goes.
(Gabe spontaneously proposes later that night. They don’t fuck, but Bill also does not say no the proposal, which is only maybe a joke. He’s not agreeing until he has a ring, but he can be patient. It has definitely been Bill’s night.)