Inevitable Predictability

Title: and the moments we hide in [standalone]
Author: minus_four
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Gabe Saporta/Victoria Asher
POV: 3rd
Summary: She doesn’t return the expression and guilt twists in Gabe’s stomach as he averts his gaze from hers, leaning sideways and looking up to see the few stars he can just make out in the tiny gap between the wall of the building and where the back alley meets street level ten feet up or so. This is why he mostly doesn’t talk to people.
Disclaimer: This is completely fictional.
Author's Notes: So, months ago it was hips_xx_hearts's birthday and I said 'ohey I'll write you something' then proceeded to fail. But she gave me the prompt of college-era gabe-the-shitty-midtown-bassist/vicky-t-the-film-student and idk how well I've done but eventually I finished this \o/ so happy belated birthday! ♥ jsyk, this isn't exactly brimming with plot lol.
ps. bonus points for whoever can spot William's cameo xD

Victoria makes her way through the crowded basement space, weaving her way past person after person. The stage is empty now, though most of the band are just hanging out near the tiny stage area, having a beer and talking to some of the crowd. One of the guitarists - Tyler, Victoria thinks she remembers from the introduction - beckons a kid over; skinny and long limbed with shoulder length chestnut hair, sixteen or seventeen by the look of his face, soft featured with wide eyes and an even wider smile as Tyler takes his guitar and gives it to the kid, putting the strap over his head so he can hold it properly.

The kid looks like it's his birthday and Christmas all at once or something, and Victoria pauses where she is and lifts her camera where it's hanging by its strap around her neck to snap a picture and capture that little scene through the tiniest gap in the crowd. The edges will be blurred by too-close bodies either side of her window, but the focus will be clear enough. She'll get her moment, and Victoria smiles to herself as rests her camera back down to hang where it had been before, carrying on her way through the crowd towards a door leading to a back room.

Victoria had seen one of the band members heading back there when Midtown's first set had ended and it's kind of intriguing to her that the person who seemed most passionate while he was playing hadn't stuck around in between sets to talk to some of the people in the crowd like the rest of the band had.

She didn't know Gabe, but Victoria definitely knew of Gabe Saporta. Except snippets and stories passed from a friends and acquaintances still didn't make any whole, coherent picture of him. Everyone Victoria has talked to tells a different story about this guy, so she figures that the only way to get a real picture of him is to talk to Gabe herself.

Once Victoria has picked her way through the crowd she’s right by the door she’d seen Gabe disappear through minutes before. It isn’t shut, the way it had seemed from further back in the basement space, but half open. From what she’s heard it’s typical enough of Gabe; always telling half-truths, letting people just halfway close, just enough and at the same time never quite enough. She nudges the door open the rest of the way with her shoulder and walks in.

Her eyes find Gabe right away. The back room is pretty small, with just enough room for the old beaten up sofa to her right as she enters, a table against the other wall and a fridge in the corner, no doubt housing more bottles to replace the few half full and far more empties that litter the table top. Gabe’s bass is lying half propped up against one arm of the sofa, and even in the only dimly lit room it makes a shadow against the light brown material of the sofa cushions. In the back of her mind Victoria notes that they might not have been brown, once. Without even really thinking about it Victoria lifts her camera and takes a photo before turning her attention back to Gabe.

He’s leaning against the doorframe about ten feet ahead of where she stands, looking out into the darkness which Victoria guesses is an alleyway or something. It’s outside, at any rate. She can feel the cool night air drifting in, making her shiver despite it being a welcome change from the stuffy, over heated basement space filled with too many people and not enough air. She takes a deep breath, filling her lungs with the decent amount of air she’d become accustomed to existing without for the past hour or so.

Stepping a little closer, Victoria notices the bottle – half full (or empty) bottle of vodka or rum, some clear liquid anyway, Gabe has held down at his side, fingers curled around the neck and the cigarette in his other hand, kept raised in front of his face as he studies it, turning his hand one way and then the other before bringing the cigarette back to his lips and taking a long drag. The motion is fluid and practiced, just like Gabe’s next movement when he breathes a steady stream of smoke out of the door into the night air, watching it drift even as he raises the bottle to his mouth to take a drink, that action seeming just as reflexive; the natural next move.

Victoria steps forward once more but Gabe doesn’t move, his gaze still fixed straight ahead but unfocused, maybe, like Gabe isn’t actually seeing anything at all. The slightly different angle casts a shadow almost half across Gabe’s face and the glow of the cigarette’s tip stands out even more as Gabe takes another drag, his cheekbones becoming slightly more defined as he does.

The clicking noise from the shutter of Victoria’s camera is just loud enough over the buzz of people talking and music playing in the background to catch Gabe’s attention. He turns his head to look at her but doesn’t express any surprise at her sudden presence in the room.

“Kinda rude taking someone’s picture without asking them,” he observes casually, still studying her as he lifts his cigarette to his mouth again to take a drag. The tip flares in the pretty dimly lit space and a bit of ash breaks off and flutters to the ground as Gabe turns back to the door to blow the smoke out of the ajar door before he straight away meets Victoria’s gaze again. “Film and-or photography student?”

Victoria smiles at him, eyebrows raised slightly in surprise as she answers, “Is it that obvious?”

“Fits,” Gabe says simply, shrugging one shoulder. “Just cocky enough to assume getting your shot is worth disregarding someone’s freedom of choice, and just stupid enough to bring an expensive camera to a show in some shitty basement venue.” His tone isn’t mean or even that condescending; just neutral, matter of fact, and he only smiles when he speaks again, “Plus I’ve seen you around the campus. Maybe.” Gabe shrugs again, his face and voice so painstakingly expressionless Victoria is pretty sure he’s actually practiced it. He’s good, if that’s the right word.

“Yeah?” Victoria walks up to Gabe, shifting her hold on her camera so she can cradle it against her body with one hand, lifting the other to take the cigarette from Gabe, tugging it from his grip with her thumb and index finger. She then raises the cigarette to her mouth, closing her lips around it as she takes a long drag. Her cheeks hollow slightly, and Gabe just stares, transfixed, as heat curls in his stomach.

It takes a few seconds for him to remember to take a breath, and it’s only when his mind is halfway to thinking about what those lips might feel like on his when Gabe realises that he doesn’t even know this girl’s name. He wasn’t lying about seeing her around though; wandering across campus filming people or taking pictures of trees and clouds and cracks in paving slabs and other artsy shit like that. And okay, maybe it’s been more than a few times, but this girl really kind of stands out in the crowd. Gabe likes that.

“So,” Gabe says casually as he reaches up to take his cigarette back, flicking ash out the back door before putting it to his mouth and filling his lungs with smoke. He holds the breath for a few seconds before slowing exhaling, coughing a little when it catches in his throat. “You got a name?”

“People usually do,” Victoria answers with a hint of teasing to her voice as Gabe flicks the stub out the door into the dark alleyway, only a tiny amount of light filtering down into the space from the street above. Gabe just lifts the bottle he’s still holding at his side to his mouth, taking a large swig as he keeps his eyes on Victoria’s, just waiting. “Victoria,” she concedes. “Though everyone calls me ‘VickyT’.”

“Victoria,” Gabe echoes, smiling at the way it sounds coming from his mouth, the way he almost thinks he can taste it on his tongue. When Victoria opens her mouth, eyes questioning, Gabe pre-empts her words and speaks his own instead. “Do I look like ‘everyone’ to you?”

She laughs, the noise seeming even brighter in the dim, smoky atmosphere as she lifts her free hand to tuck her hair back behind her ear.

“I like ‘Victoria’,” Gabe adds, speaking slowly, thoughtful. “S’got class, you know? Sounds like you should be someplace better than this.”

“And where’s better than this?”

For a second Gabe thinks she’s joking but her eyes are sincere, unblinking, and she doesn’t laugh. It kind of makes Gabe want to laugh, because most days all he can think about is getting out, getting somewhere better, wherever that is or whatever the fuck it means.

Gabe can’t really remember a time he wasn’t dying to get out, but fuck if he’s ever been able to figure out where he wants to go or what that means. Sometimes Gabe’s pretty sure it’s not even a place, that he just wants to get out of his head somehow, and sometimes he wonders if he’s looking to get out of life all together. He never wonders too long or too hard, though. It’s a little dangerous, Gabe knows that much at least.

“I don’t know. Anywhere. Everywhere. Whatever,” Gabe says, raising his now free right hand to wave it in the direction Victoria had entered from, back out into the main space. “I mean, look at this place. It’s a complete dive.” There may be a slight edge of derision in Gabe’s voice but the smile that spreads across his face speaks differently.

Victoria smiles too as she lifts her camera again and focuses it with a practised ease to quickly snap another photo of Gabe, whose attention snaps back to Victoria once more from where he’d been transfixed, lost in thought looking out at the room filled with people, mostly kids, all looking for something they probably didn’t even know specifically themselves. He stares at her in disbelief, scorn fighting with a secret kind of satisfaction that keeps one corner of his mouth quirked upward in a slight smile.

“You really like doing that, don’t you?” he deadpans as he turns to get his cigarettes from where his jacket is lying crumpled next to his bass. Gabe considers offering one to Victoria but quickly dismisses the idea when his mind flashes back without his permission, the feeling of her fingers brushing his and the look in her eyes when she took the cigarette from his grip, the way she smiled.

She studies him silently for the whole two seconds it takes for the thoughts to pass across Gabe’s mind as he puts the cigarette to his mouth and lights it. He takes the first long drag, savouring the way it fills his lungs, stinging just the right amount. Victoria doesn’t take her eyes off his but Gabe tells himself the haziness, the way the world seems to sway slightly, is just the nicotine hitting his system.

“But you love it,” Victoria says, simple and definite as she reaches up to take the cigarette from Gabe’s fingers again while he’s too distracted by trying to figure out what she means to stop her, even if he’d wanted to.

Then there’s the way her cheeks hollow again, more defined this time, deliberate, as she takes a deep drag, and Gabe forgets what he was going to question. He kind of forgets everything except the word want.

Victoria blows smoke into his face to bring him back to reality and Gabe coughs, feeling a prickling heat creep up his spine to settle at the base of his neck and he tells himself it’s just the stifling temperature of the basement space filled with people and nothing to do with the knowing look in Victoria’s eyes and the sense of it in her smile as she laughs.

“You could do this for the rest of your life and be happy,” she states without a hint of question.

Gabe shrugs as she hands the cigarette back, flicking ash onto the floor as he settles the grip of his thumb and forefinger on it unconsciously, effortless in that far-too-many-a-day way. “As happy as I’ll ever be.” Gabe doesn’t sound sad, just resigned, and for the first time since she came back here and snapped that picture of Gabe the smile disappears from Victoria’s face completely. “Hey, no. I mean -” Gabe starts when he notices it. “It’s cool. It’s just… me.” He shrugs again, offering her an apologetic smile which doesn’t reach his eyes.

She doesn’t return the expression and guilt twists in Gabe’s stomach as he averts his gaze from hers, leaning sideways and looking up to see the few stars he can just make out in the tiny gap between the wall of the building and where the back alley meets street level ten feet up or so. This is why he mostly doesn’t talk to people. Sooner or later he always says the wrong thing, forgets to lie a little, and someone gets hurt just from being near him. Sometimes Gabe manages to forget that he seems to have a different default level of hurting than everyone else, that it isn’t just background noise for them, something to just try and not think about because it’s always there.

“So why do you do anything?” Victoria’s voice, just quiet and a little curious, prompts Gabe to turn his head back again to meet her eyes. He glances down after that, suddenly remembering that his hands aren’t empty, cigarette sitting loosely in his fingers down by his left hip and the bottle still hanging down by his right thigh, forgotten until now. He lifts the bottle and holds it out to Victoria. When she thanks him as she takes it with her free hand, the other holding her camera, he shrugs.

“Wouldn’t want to be rude, now.” Gabe smirks.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Victoria answers before putting the neck of the bottle to her lips, tipping it up and her head back, exposing the delicate line of her throat. She only grimaces slightly at the burn of the Vodka - not that Gabe’s watching. “It’s a little rude to just ignore someone when they ask you something.” She arches one eyebrow as she hands the bottle back to Gabe.

“What the hell kind of question was that, anyway?” Gabe says pointedly, letting out a breath of derisive laughter. “What did you think I was gonna say? ‘Because it makes my heart sing’? ‘Because - gosh darn it - if we all just tried a little harder we could make the world a better place’?” Gabe asks, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he gives her a look before taking another long drink from the bottle.

As one habit reminds him of the other Gabe looks down to see his cigarette had been slowly burning away, leaving only maybe half an inch left. He taps his index finger to make the ash fall and quickly takes one last drag before giving the cigarette to Victoria to finish, and Gabe hopes the gesture says That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t aimed at you, because it just isn’t something he can say out loud.

“Okay.” Victoria nods, her gaze shifting just to the right of Gabe’s, just to the line of the doorframe he’s leaning against as she thinks. “Then why college?” she simplifies, focusing on Gabe’s eyes again as she adds, “That what you want?”

“It’s… expected,” Gabe settles on finally, though he hates the word for what it means admitting; submission, normality, following the crowd just because it’s what people do, it’s what he has no reason not to do when he has no other plan. “It’s not what I want. Never was. It’s just…” He trails off, shrugging again. Gabe doesn’t have the end of that thought, no answers or excuses; one more thing to hate.

“So what do you want?”

Gabe just laughs, because isn’t that the fifty fucking thousand dollar question? He was half expecting it but that doesn’t really mean he’s pissed off any less by it and everything it means, everything it makes him think about, realise about himself.

“You know,” Gabe begins, passing the bottle back to Victoria when the compulsion to just down whatever’s left tugs at his consciousness, “I’m pretty sure I could have anything in the world, fucking everything, and I’d still want something else.” He huffs out a self-mocking laugh. “How fucked up is that?”

“We’re all fucked up,” Victoria says simply. She knows it’s clichéd, obvious, but it’s also true. She also knows that Gabe just exposed himself somewhat, so she decides to reciprocate a little. “You know why I do what I do?” Victoria questions, and Gabe just gives her half a shrug, waiting for her to continue. “I take pictures and I make these little films that no one really gives a shit about because there’s always something new, and if there’s always a new moment to capture then you can’t think too hard about what’s gone before or whatever’s coming in future. It’s about now. And…” Victoria falters, pauses for a second, and Gabe just waits, just keeps looking at her, watching and listening with quiet intent, like there isn’t a hundred people in the main room just a short distance away. Like they’re alone. Victoria still doesn’t know Gabe, but she suddenly realises that she trusts him none the less, for whatever reason. She just does. “And you can hide in that,” Victoria finishes, and a kind of understanding seems to settle in Gabe’s expression.

He nods, giving her a small smile, which seems to Victoria maybe almost… thankful. “It’s all about moments, huh?” Gabe reaches over and takes the bottle from her but he doesn’t drink any of the alcohol, just sets the bottle down on the floor in the corner next to the doorframe to the right of his foot. Victoria nods, a smile spreading across her own face even as she looks at him questioningly, wondering. “Put your camera down,” he instructs, nodding to the table behind her.

“Why?” Even as she asks Victoria is turning around though, slipping her bag over her head so she can put the camera inside it before setting the bag down on the table. She quickly flicks the left over cigarette stub, barely smoking and forgotten, now, out into the alleyway.

“Because we’re about to have a moment.” Gabe’s voice is closer, she realises a split second before she actually turns back around and he’s right there in front of her, face just barely inches away from hers when she looks up because she has to; Gabe is suddenly taller when he isn’t slumped down against the door frame. He grins at her, the first real smile Victoria has seen from him, and her first instinct is to take a photo before she remembers, so she just looks at him for a second or two, trying to burn the image into her memory.

That’s all the time she gets, though, because Victoria can’t focus then, can’t think as Gabe lifts one hand to gently brush her bangs away from her face, tucking her hair back behind her ear the way she’d done herself before. In the back of her mind Victoria wonders if it’s just a coincidence or whether he remembered. Gabe seems like the kind of person who would notice the little things, the tiny moments, just the way she does, too. She doesn’t know Gabe, though, Victoria reminds herself again. She still doesn’t really know Gabe but that somehow, suddenly and completely, does not matter at all right now, and it really stops mattering when he shifts his hand to cup the back of her head, just gently keeping her right where she is as he leans forward.

As he kisses her, the movement of his mouth against hers quickly intensifying when she reciprocates the action, Gabe twists his fingers in her hair, using his grip to tip her head back a little so he can deepen the kiss, working his tongue into her mouth once she grants him that access, silently giving him permission the way her hands, her fingers sliding down his lower back and gripping just right, were saying yes, and maybe even please. Victoria’s nails dig into his skin where she’s slipped one hand up under the hem of his shirt, and it stings just right for Gabe to groan quietly, deep in the back of his throat. He walks forward, blindly pushing her backward in search of stability, of balance when things get blurry, not so much in the too-much-to-drink way as the fucking awesome way when things spark in the exact right way for Gabe to feel it. Jesus, he can feel it.

When Victoria stumbles back against the table hard enough to knock bottles over she unthinkingly breaks the kiss, straight away turning around to check her camera is still there and safe in the way she instinctually does even she has it strapped around her neck. It’s just second nature.

It’s only when she reaches behind her to pat her fingers across its familiar shape that Victoria relaxes from the sudden sensation of split second panic. As she turns her head to meet Gabe’s eyes again she breathes out a half self-mocking huff of laughter.

“I always do that,” she says quietly, shaking her head as she takes a deep breath. The cool air feels good in her lungs as she holds it there for a couple of seconds, her head slowly clearing as she looks up, Gabe just looking right back at her.

“You’re not… I mean. This is cool, right? You’re not… with anyone,” he doesn’t quite actually ask her, seeming suddenly a little awkward.

“Do you care?” Victoria just keeps her eyes on his, just waiting as she smiles slightly. She may not know Gabe, but she’s pretty sure she knows the answer to that even if it’s not the one he’s going to give her.

“’Course not,” Gabe shrugs one shoulder, lips quirking upward in a slight smile, a half smirk.

“Yeah, you do,” Vicky says slowly, with just a tiny bit of teasing to her voice.

“Whatever,” Gabe replies simply and he rolls his eyes at her but he’s smiling, not even trying to suppress it anymore.

“Don’t worry,” Victoria tells him, smiling back. “I won’t tell anyone.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“Yeah?” Victoria steps forward, standing up a little straighter and squaring her shoulders, closing the last tiny gap of personal space they still have between them at that point.

“Count on it,” Gabe confirms, bending his neck a little so he’s looking down slightly, angle just right for him to just lean forward the tiniest amount, so close that when he angles his head back the other way, without leaning forward, the tip of his nose just barely grazes against hers, and an involuntary shiver runs down Victoria’s spine.

Victoria is just about to give in to the sudden urge flooding her whole being to simply lean forward and remove that last millimeter of space between them when there’s a shout of “Yo! Gabe!” that snaps both of their attentions to the doorway that leads back out into the main party space.

“Guess we’re back on.” There’s a trace of regret, maybe, or apology perhaps in Gabe’s voice as he steps back and turns around to pick up his bass, settling the strap around his neck and one arm around the instrument as he smiles. His expression gets better though, even brighter, when he looks up at Victoria again. “Gonna go have myself a moment or two,” he says, grinning, and it’s only when he’s left the room Victoria even realises that she’s smiling herself.

She picks up her bag and gets out her camera, ready as she walks out of the back room just as the first few starting notes are played.

---

One week later an A4 envelope finds its way to Gabe’s mailbox. It isn’t addressed or stamped, just sealed, and he’s surprised when he rips the flap open and reaches inside to pull out the photographs.

He recognises the basement venue from the previous weekend right away, he and the rest of his band on the tiny stage area and the crowd right in front of them. There are better pictures of the people watching them too, photos taken from the side so he could see what their faces looked like, the way some of them looked exactly the way he felt himself when he was playing.

Gabe finds himself smiling the entire time he looks through the pictures, but his smile widens right away when he gets to the last one.

The last photo is one taken at arm's length, Victoria's face practically filling the frame and her smile seeming to fill half of that, eyes bright inside their confines of smudged eyeliner, hair mussed. It's a little blurry, skewed, no doubt from being surrounded by several dozen jostling bodies, but in the background Gabe can make out himself, bass in his hands, looking out at the people in front of him, the smile on his face one to rival even Victoria's.

Gabe stares at the picture for a long time, just taking in the captured moment and his eyes more often than not getting caught in Victoria's; just looking, remembering. He thinks back to the set break, to those eyes lifting to meet his as she took a drag from his cigarette. The way that felt. The way he felt that.

Gabe looks at the photograph, and he wants.