Gabriel and Quentin: Late-Night Feelings
Mar. 8th, 2026 01:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logs[backdated] Gabriel finally says something out loud.
Hotel lighting was supposed to be flattering.
And in a way, the fixtures and bulbs in this bathroom were. They smoothed Gabriel's skin out, and he could tell they added a shadow of a sort to his pecs that might have looked nice in a selfie if he hadn't left his phone on the nightstand when he'd quietly slipped out of the covers, moving lightly to avoid stirring a sleeping Quentin.
But when he'd flipped the room’s two light switches, he caught a flash of the greys in his scruff, greys he could usually ignore or pretend were blond. And now he was leaning forward, his plan to take a shower all but abandoned as he took a kind of mental inventory of each silver strand on his temple, dotting his chin, in his chest.
This, he figured, was the problem with birthdays. Gabriel had stopped judging his age by the calendar long ago. In his case, it was only so helpful. But there was some evidence he couldn't avoid, and here it was, staring him in the face.
In the other room, Quentin's post-coital doze was interrupted when he rolled over and nobody was there to alternately shove him away and then pull him in close. Through bleary eyes, he saw the sliver of light coming from underneath the bathroom door, and first figured Gabriel just needed a bathroom break. But when Gabriel didn't return after several minutes, Quentin groaned and dragged himself out of bed and ambled lazily to the bathroom. No sounds were coming from the other side of the door, and he did not smell anything, either. What was he doing in there?
Quentin tapped his knuckles against the door once. "G, is now really the time for hotel selfies?"
“I’m not…” Gabriel closed his eyes and exhaled. Selfies might have been less embarrassing. “I’m not even sure what time it is,” he said after a second. He grabbed one of the glasses by the sink and reached for the faucet. “My internal clock makes no sense anymore. Hasn’t for years.”
"Your vape pen's in my pocket if you need a chemical aid." It was not a healthy suggestion, just the kind of cool banter that made up most of their communication. "Or we can call room service and gorge until a hyperglycemic coma. Or both, actually."
"The vape would be good." A cigarette would have been better. "The door's unlocked," Gabriel added, a comment that was wholly unnecessary since he slid it open himself. "Sorry if I woke you," he said. "I was up, and then I was just... up."
Quentin hesitated a moment before going back to retrieve Gabriel's pen, first giving the other man a quick visual assessment before stepping away. He returned a moment later with the device in hand and took a puff himself before handing it over and stepping inside the bathroom. He hopped up onto the counter, wincing a bit at the cool marble on his bare skin.
"So? What's so important it's got you up after I very thoroughly worked you over?"
"I mean, nothing," Gabriel shrugged. He took the vape, staring at it, considering whether a little THC was really what he needed. "I woke up and I don't have a real circadian rhythm anymore, maybe because of my powers and the drugs." He waved his hand. "Plus that happens when you get older, and I'm getting fucking old." He hit the vape.
"Bitch, you're only a year older than me. You're going to give me a complex if you keep cosplaying daddy." Quentin plucked the pen from Gabriel's hand and took a hit himself before handing it back. "If you're reaching a midlife crisis at 30 then we have a problem."
"I'm more than a year older than you," Gabriel said, without the force of real commitment. He looked at the mirror again, twirling the weed pen around in his hands for a second. "I'm, like..." He wasn't sure how to explain this. He had never really tried before. "I'm not really 30. I mean, I am, but, like, I'm really not."
Quentin kept a straight face while Gabriel stumbled through his explanation, but when no question was answered, he rolled his eyes and gently kicked Gabriel's thigh in chastisement. "The fuck do you mean? You don't have to make it all poetic. Just use your words, hot stuff."
“It’s not poetic. It’s physics.” Gabriel took another hit from the weed pen. He looked at the mirror again, then decided he didn’t want to have this conversation somewhere bright or somewhere where he could watch Quentin’s reaction from multiple angles.
"Come on." He handed the vape back to Quentin with a small smile, then retreated from the glare of the bathroom and to the relative comfort of the king-sized bed, which he now regretted leaving in the first place. "I don't mean to be a drag." He didn't. "You can forget I said anything." He wouldn't.
He couldn't. Standing at the precipice of epiphany, there was no world where Quentin Quire could back away. He glared at Gabriel as if his glower itself would illuminate the dark room for Gabriel to see him. "Stop being an idiot and just tell me."
Gabriel at least had the decency not to sigh as he shifted along the bed. “Have we ever really talked about how my mutation works?” He turned to look at Quentin, his expression a practiced neutral. “I don’t entirely understand it,” he admitted. “But I am not super-fast, strictly speaking. I’m — I change the way time flows for myself and my immediate surroundings.”
He turned to grab a half-empty water bottle off the nightstand and to consider whether he was explaining this properly. “One of the eggheads could explain this better, but basically, whatever I’m doing means time goes faster for me and slower for everything else.”
Quentin considered himself an intelligent person. Not one of the mansion's certified geniuses, but knowledgeable and insightful nonetheless. So it only took him a moment of deliberation to pick up what Gabriel was putting down. "That explains the everlasting five-o'clock shadow and your bitching about persistent joint pain. So, the crisis is real, then."
"It's not a crisis," Gabriel said, trying to brush off the quips without sounding too exasperated. "But think about how often you use your gifts in a day. A week. To do things you don't even think about. Things that just come as second nature to you, because you've always done them. And we all do that, right? Nature of the beast." He twisted open the water bottle, then closed it again. "And that's before all the big things. The missions and the subterfuge and the escapes. The big gestures."
There was a small silence, one that Gabriel knew felt longer than it was. He wasn't sure what to say exactly to fill it.
"I'm not good at talking about this," he said suddenly, unable to help sounding annoyed with himself. "And I don't really think about it much. But sometimes I can't help it."
And as not good as Gabriel was at talking, Quentin was even worse at speaking words of comfort. Not one of the many talents men praised his mouth for. He hoped putting a hand on Gabriel's thigh and squeezing was taken as the reassurance it was intended and not patronizing. "Do you know how much older you are, physiologically?"
Gabriel shook his head. "I think I could have guessed once. I tried to keep track of how old I looked, at least. But I stopped doing that at some point a few years ago, when it didn't seem to matter as much." He started picking at the bottle's label, then leaned over to put it back on the nightstand. "Not that it matters now," he said. "I mean, not really. It just hit me tonight, that's all."
"Why? Your virility is clearly not waning. Just because I don't look a day over 22 myself . . ."
Gabriel gently shoved him, then slid a bit further down into the bed so that his head was resting against Quentin's shoulder. "I know milestones are arbitrary, but it's hard to ignore them." He lifted and raised one shoulder. "I think about time a lot. Occupational hazard."
Quentin's arm snaked around Gabriel, pulling him in closer, though the affectionate gesture was perhaps undermined by the telepath's next question. "So now you're worried you're cutting your own life short as if Colbert and Sydney aren't already doing their best to do that themselves?"
"Not exactly." Gabriel wasn't even sure he was worried, not really. He wasn't sure why this was striking him now. Or why it had been nagging at him quite a bit in the last year or so. "I have a lot of life ahead of me still," he said after a moment. "Against all odds, honestly."
"So then what is keeping you up if it's not mortality? Vanity? You're not one to hold a wake for twink death."
"That circadian rhythm thing wasn't a lie," Gabriel said, resting his hand on Quentin's thigh. "But I don't know. I just feel it. I don't know why."
There was a pause as Quentin continued to process Gabriel's confessions. He was no therapist like Haller and did not make a habit of non-consensually mucking with people's minds . . . well, not Gabriel's, at least. So loathe he was to admit it, Quentin was ill-suited to help Gabriel process any of this. So he did the only things he could: took a hit from the vape pen and climbed onto Gabriel's lap, tenderly draping his arms around Gabriel's neck before reaching in for a deep drawn-out kiss.
Gabriel had more he could say, if he'd been articulate enough to, if he'd been in touch with himself enough. That before, when he was younger, he'd never felt the time mattered all that much, because he was a loner and didn't have much to lose. That there were years, after M Day, after everything, where he was hurtling toward the end because there wasn't much point to dragging things out. That he'd seen versions of himself unencumbered by time, and he wasn't sure they were happy with where that got them.
But none of this was accessible enough to him, and so instead, he sunk into Quentin's kiss, returning it after his initial surprise, and melted into the sheets.
"Whatever the proximate cause of this anguish this is," Quentin said softly when the kiss ended, his lips still not even an inch away from Gabriel's, "It's ephemeral. And I'm not. I'm going to be here way after I've worn out my welcome. I'm in your head forever." He grinned and kissed Gabriel again. "Not just telepathically. I'm just black mold in your brain by virtue of being me."
Gabriel brushed an errant strand of Quentin's face. "That's not as sexy or reassuring of a visual as you might think." He kissed him again anyway. "Actually quite disgusting."
Hotel lighting was supposed to be flattering.
And in a way, the fixtures and bulbs in this bathroom were. They smoothed Gabriel's skin out, and he could tell they added a shadow of a sort to his pecs that might have looked nice in a selfie if he hadn't left his phone on the nightstand when he'd quietly slipped out of the covers, moving lightly to avoid stirring a sleeping Quentin.
But when he'd flipped the room’s two light switches, he caught a flash of the greys in his scruff, greys he could usually ignore or pretend were blond. And now he was leaning forward, his plan to take a shower all but abandoned as he took a kind of mental inventory of each silver strand on his temple, dotting his chin, in his chest.
This, he figured, was the problem with birthdays. Gabriel had stopped judging his age by the calendar long ago. In his case, it was only so helpful. But there was some evidence he couldn't avoid, and here it was, staring him in the face.
In the other room, Quentin's post-coital doze was interrupted when he rolled over and nobody was there to alternately shove him away and then pull him in close. Through bleary eyes, he saw the sliver of light coming from underneath the bathroom door, and first figured Gabriel just needed a bathroom break. But when Gabriel didn't return after several minutes, Quentin groaned and dragged himself out of bed and ambled lazily to the bathroom. No sounds were coming from the other side of the door, and he did not smell anything, either. What was he doing in there?
Quentin tapped his knuckles against the door once. "G, is now really the time for hotel selfies?"
“I’m not…” Gabriel closed his eyes and exhaled. Selfies might have been less embarrassing. “I’m not even sure what time it is,” he said after a second. He grabbed one of the glasses by the sink and reached for the faucet. “My internal clock makes no sense anymore. Hasn’t for years.”
"Your vape pen's in my pocket if you need a chemical aid." It was not a healthy suggestion, just the kind of cool banter that made up most of their communication. "Or we can call room service and gorge until a hyperglycemic coma. Or both, actually."
"The vape would be good." A cigarette would have been better. "The door's unlocked," Gabriel added, a comment that was wholly unnecessary since he slid it open himself. "Sorry if I woke you," he said. "I was up, and then I was just... up."
Quentin hesitated a moment before going back to retrieve Gabriel's pen, first giving the other man a quick visual assessment before stepping away. He returned a moment later with the device in hand and took a puff himself before handing it over and stepping inside the bathroom. He hopped up onto the counter, wincing a bit at the cool marble on his bare skin.
"So? What's so important it's got you up after I very thoroughly worked you over?"
"I mean, nothing," Gabriel shrugged. He took the vape, staring at it, considering whether a little THC was really what he needed. "I woke up and I don't have a real circadian rhythm anymore, maybe because of my powers and the drugs." He waved his hand. "Plus that happens when you get older, and I'm getting fucking old." He hit the vape.
"Bitch, you're only a year older than me. You're going to give me a complex if you keep cosplaying daddy." Quentin plucked the pen from Gabriel's hand and took a hit himself before handing it back. "If you're reaching a midlife crisis at 30 then we have a problem."
"I'm more than a year older than you," Gabriel said, without the force of real commitment. He looked at the mirror again, twirling the weed pen around in his hands for a second. "I'm, like..." He wasn't sure how to explain this. He had never really tried before. "I'm not really 30. I mean, I am, but, like, I'm really not."
Quentin kept a straight face while Gabriel stumbled through his explanation, but when no question was answered, he rolled his eyes and gently kicked Gabriel's thigh in chastisement. "The fuck do you mean? You don't have to make it all poetic. Just use your words, hot stuff."
“It’s not poetic. It’s physics.” Gabriel took another hit from the weed pen. He looked at the mirror again, then decided he didn’t want to have this conversation somewhere bright or somewhere where he could watch Quentin’s reaction from multiple angles.
"Come on." He handed the vape back to Quentin with a small smile, then retreated from the glare of the bathroom and to the relative comfort of the king-sized bed, which he now regretted leaving in the first place. "I don't mean to be a drag." He didn't. "You can forget I said anything." He wouldn't.
He couldn't. Standing at the precipice of epiphany, there was no world where Quentin Quire could back away. He glared at Gabriel as if his glower itself would illuminate the dark room for Gabriel to see him. "Stop being an idiot and just tell me."
Gabriel at least had the decency not to sigh as he shifted along the bed. “Have we ever really talked about how my mutation works?” He turned to look at Quentin, his expression a practiced neutral. “I don’t entirely understand it,” he admitted. “But I am not super-fast, strictly speaking. I’m — I change the way time flows for myself and my immediate surroundings.”
He turned to grab a half-empty water bottle off the nightstand and to consider whether he was explaining this properly. “One of the eggheads could explain this better, but basically, whatever I’m doing means time goes faster for me and slower for everything else.”
Quentin considered himself an intelligent person. Not one of the mansion's certified geniuses, but knowledgeable and insightful nonetheless. So it only took him a moment of deliberation to pick up what Gabriel was putting down. "That explains the everlasting five-o'clock shadow and your bitching about persistent joint pain. So, the crisis is real, then."
"It's not a crisis," Gabriel said, trying to brush off the quips without sounding too exasperated. "But think about how often you use your gifts in a day. A week. To do things you don't even think about. Things that just come as second nature to you, because you've always done them. And we all do that, right? Nature of the beast." He twisted open the water bottle, then closed it again. "And that's before all the big things. The missions and the subterfuge and the escapes. The big gestures."
There was a small silence, one that Gabriel knew felt longer than it was. He wasn't sure what to say exactly to fill it.
"I'm not good at talking about this," he said suddenly, unable to help sounding annoyed with himself. "And I don't really think about it much. But sometimes I can't help it."
And as not good as Gabriel was at talking, Quentin was even worse at speaking words of comfort. Not one of the many talents men praised his mouth for. He hoped putting a hand on Gabriel's thigh and squeezing was taken as the reassurance it was intended and not patronizing. "Do you know how much older you are, physiologically?"
Gabriel shook his head. "I think I could have guessed once. I tried to keep track of how old I looked, at least. But I stopped doing that at some point a few years ago, when it didn't seem to matter as much." He started picking at the bottle's label, then leaned over to put it back on the nightstand. "Not that it matters now," he said. "I mean, not really. It just hit me tonight, that's all."
"Why? Your virility is clearly not waning. Just because I don't look a day over 22 myself . . ."
Gabriel gently shoved him, then slid a bit further down into the bed so that his head was resting against Quentin's shoulder. "I know milestones are arbitrary, but it's hard to ignore them." He lifted and raised one shoulder. "I think about time a lot. Occupational hazard."
Quentin's arm snaked around Gabriel, pulling him in closer, though the affectionate gesture was perhaps undermined by the telepath's next question. "So now you're worried you're cutting your own life short as if Colbert and Sydney aren't already doing their best to do that themselves?"
"Not exactly." Gabriel wasn't even sure he was worried, not really. He wasn't sure why this was striking him now. Or why it had been nagging at him quite a bit in the last year or so. "I have a lot of life ahead of me still," he said after a moment. "Against all odds, honestly."
"So then what is keeping you up if it's not mortality? Vanity? You're not one to hold a wake for twink death."
"That circadian rhythm thing wasn't a lie," Gabriel said, resting his hand on Quentin's thigh. "But I don't know. I just feel it. I don't know why."
There was a pause as Quentin continued to process Gabriel's confessions. He was no therapist like Haller and did not make a habit of non-consensually mucking with people's minds . . . well, not Gabriel's, at least. So loathe he was to admit it, Quentin was ill-suited to help Gabriel process any of this. So he did the only things he could: took a hit from the vape pen and climbed onto Gabriel's lap, tenderly draping his arms around Gabriel's neck before reaching in for a deep drawn-out kiss.
Gabriel had more he could say, if he'd been articulate enough to, if he'd been in touch with himself enough. That before, when he was younger, he'd never felt the time mattered all that much, because he was a loner and didn't have much to lose. That there were years, after M Day, after everything, where he was hurtling toward the end because there wasn't much point to dragging things out. That he'd seen versions of himself unencumbered by time, and he wasn't sure they were happy with where that got them.
But none of this was accessible enough to him, and so instead, he sunk into Quentin's kiss, returning it after his initial surprise, and melted into the sheets.
"Whatever the proximate cause of this anguish this is," Quentin said softly when the kiss ended, his lips still not even an inch away from Gabriel's, "It's ephemeral. And I'm not. I'm going to be here way after I've worn out my welcome. I'm in your head forever." He grinned and kissed Gabriel again. "Not just telepathically. I'm just black mold in your brain by virtue of being me."
Gabriel brushed an errant strand of Quentin's face. "That's not as sexy or reassuring of a visual as you might think." He kissed him again anyway. "Actually quite disgusting."
