Scott & Gabriel - Misery Loves Company

[x-velocidad.livejournal.com]

Gabriel and Scott bond over a bottle of whiskey and lost loves, like this is an English folk song or something.

The idea had come to Gabriel after the first glass of whiskey. Drinking alone to numb your misery was pathetic. Doing it with someone else, he reasoned, was grieving.

So now, with a bottle of Johnny Walker he'd liberated and two glasses he'd grabbed from the kitchen, Gabriel stood - hesitated, really - outside Scott's quarters. It wasn't like he knew the man all that well, but there weren't too many people in the mansion he expected to be good drinking buddies right now. And Scott was one of the few other Xavierites he knew wouldn't bother with pitying looks or uncertain consolation. Both of which he'd been getting way too much of since he came back.

He knocked on the man's door.

Scott had retreated to his and...his apartment to be alone, to get away from the concerned looks and constant questions, but he couldn't escape from his thoughts that kept dragging him back to how things had change, to what he'd lost. So he found himself sitting staring out of the window stroking Desdemona, trying his best to just to think. Or at least he had been until he heard someone knocking at the door, someone else coming by to check on him.

"I'm fine"...his voice trailed off as he saw the man outside his door, "Gabriel? What's going on? Is everything ok?"

"Okay is relative," Gabriel raised an eyebrow. He shoved the bottle of whiskey into Scott's arms. "We're drinking. This bottle's too nice to waste on me." Sensing the man's hesitation, he shrugged. "Don't make me drink by myself."

Scott's eyes flicked down to the bottle in his hands and then up to Gabriel's face before he stepped back and gestured towards the lounge, "The good stuff, well who could refuse that. Come on in," The older man stopped by the kitchen to grab two glasses before dropping them on the table next to Gabriel before filling them and dropping back into his seat.

"Thanks." Gabriel raised his drink to Scott, not bothering to toast or clink glasses since he felt nowhere near festive. He took a sip, then winced instinctively. "Too good for me, I think." He glanced around Scott's apartment, relieved to see it wasn't as funereal as a part of him feared. "You've got a nice place here."

"Thanks, it used to be Storm's but Jean...she found it and we decided to move in." Scott's voice trailed off as he stared down at the drink in his hands. "I still can't believe she, they are gone. I keep expecting to wake up and see Jean sleeping there, or go down to training and see Yvette waiting."

"Yeah." Gabriel stared rather intently at his hands, a little unsure how to console a man who lost his soulmate. "It's kind of weird how everything looks the same, and kind of feels the same, but it isn't the same." He shrugged and lifted the glass, then let out a hollow laugh. "God, that was profound. I just feel like there should—something should be different."

"Some kinda sign? Yeah I know exactly what you mean," Scott agreed, "It's like the weirdest sense of deja vu, everything is where it's supposed to be, but it's not the same. I think it's the little things, the memories we attached to them, I mean we, you and I, know that this isn't what we had back then no matter how much we try to believe that it is."

Gabriel took another sip of whiskey. "Everyone knows that," he said flatly. "But they have each other. It's—" He shrugged, hating how self-pitying he was sounding. But that had been the point. "There was a brief period before... when the mansion was still standing, and I thought everything was over, that I just wanted to hold Clint. For him to hold me." He closed his eyes. "And then I found out he was dead."


Scott's face fell, "I'm sorry Gabriel, I've been sitting here all this time feeling sorry for myself." Scott sighed and rubbed the palms of his hands into his eyes. "Clint was really special, hearing what happened." Scott stared down at his tumbler, "What happened to everyone I was supposed to protect." he shook his head and gave Gabriel a wry look. I'm sorry, I'm not really a lot of fun today."

"No, no, no," Gabriel said quickly, his eyes popping open to glance at Scott. "That's not what I meant. Just, that, like... I mean, I get it. Mostly. Kinda." He reached for the bottle, deciding his glass was too close too empty. "I mean, your wife died. I lost my boyfriend. They're not the same, I know that, obviously. Just that it's fucking hard. Different than what everyone else is dealing with." He poured. "Way different."

"You're not wrong," Scott agreed. "It's they have someone they can trust to support them through this, no that's not what I mean." Scott sighed, "It's hard to say but they still have a rock, someone they can confide all their fears in. I trust everyone at the mansion, but it's not the same." he nodded at Gabriel, "Someone who can hold you and tell you everything will be better. That's what I meant, that's what's missing."

Gabriel didn't say anything for a while, instead staring off into space and trying to sense how buzzed he was. Not numb enough. "I miss her too, you know?" It was a stupid thing to say to Jean's husband, he sensed that as he lifted the glass to his lips again, but he didn't think Scott was going to judge him for it.

Scott smiled faintly as he looked down at his whiskey, swirling it around slowly, "She liked you, you know," he said softly looking up at Gabriel, "When you called her for help it was a chance for her to go out, find just that one person out there who needed her help and actually be able to help them. When you decided to stick around and become part of the family, it made her so happy. Thank you, for that, for this."

"Oh, sure." Gabriel shrugged, avoiding eye contact at all costs. "It's not trouble. I'm a bartender. Whiskey's easy to come by."

"I don't think the good stuff just happened to be lying around the bar for you to take home," Scott pointed out with a small shake of his head.

"Well..." A smirk slowly appeared on Gabriel's face. "Okay. Fair point. Old habits die hard, I guess."

"If we're talking habits like this, then may they last forever," Scott replied with a smile.

"I'm fine with that." Gabriel glanced at his glass then back at Scott. "Kinda feel like I should be living life to its fullest these days."

Scott took a sip of his whiskey before nodding, "I hear that, no use for putting off till tomorrow what you can do today."

"So what does that mean for you?" Gabriel tipped his chair back slightly, then planted it back on the ground. "I mean, you know, after we get through all this," he waved around, as if his motions could conjure up the heaviness that lingered in in the mansion these days.

"Business as usual I guess," Scott sighed, "It's a big scary world out there for mutants, that hasn't changed. There is always going to be a need for the X-men, perhaps now more than ever. But perhaps, I think I'll go back to Alaska. I keep meaning to go visit my grandparents and keep putting it off, or" the X-man visibly shuddered, "Maybe ever go to Madripoor." He nodded at Gabriel, "what about you?"

"Honestly?" Gabriel shrugged, then gave Scott a mildly guilty smile. "Liberating more whiskey and smoking a lot of weed." He lifted his glass again to punctuate the point. "I don't have deep aims, and I don't have deep pockets, so that's what I've got."

"You've got to go with what's right for you," Scott agreed taking another sip of his whiskey, "Though, if you end up liberating any more of this whiskey and need a drinking buddy," the older man smiled, "my door is always open."

"Yeah," Gabriel smiled back. "Thanks." He raised his glass and clinked it against Scott's. "Cheers." It seemed like a thing to do even if neither of them had made any particular pronouncement.

"Cheers," Scott replied as he raised his glass in Gabriel's direction, leaning back in the comfortable chair he stared out of the window as a companionable silence settled over the apartment, broken intermittently only by the sound of the two men going for another glass of whiskey.