Gabriel Gets Caught
Tucking Joel into bed, Gabriel grabbed both their cell phones and silently walked into the living room. He poured himself a glass of wine before sitting down on his couch and dropping the phones beside him. He picked up Joel’s first, relieved to find he hadn’t added a security passcode to it yet. This shit with Davis had to end immediately. Gabriel tapped out a text to Davis that he hoped sounded appropriately conciliatory.
After it was sent and registered as being read, Gabriel deleted it, setting the phone aside.
He hated to see Joel this upset, and had no idea what had happened in the apartment to set him off in such a fit, and most especially he had no idea why Joel had tried to push him away. It left Gabriel feeling unsettled, and not having any answers was making Gabriel feel like his skin would peel off, leaving him raw and exposed and vulnerable. It was unacceptable.
He wanted the future he could clearly see laid out before him. Joel was there. Of course Joel was there. Gabriel mentally backtracked, trying to figure out how he had fallen so hard for the red-haired boy asleep in his bed.
The first Christmas card had come from Madeline when Joel was twelve. Nearly seven years ago. Gabriel hadn’t paid any mind to it. He’d had no interest in meeting his brother’s family, and even less interest in sending them money.
A card came every Christmas, and when he looked back on them now, he could see Joel growing more despondent in every forced family picture. He hadn’t paid attention then. Madeline's demands grew more and more aggressive, her hatred toward her son more and more volatile. It wasn’t until year four, after Gabriel had met his own Thomas at the bar, that he’d decided to try and seek out his brother and his family. Gabriel had no intention of giving Madeline money, he only wanted to see them. In retrospect, he wasn’t sure what end result he expected. But seeing Joel in the flesh set him off in ways he hadn’t anticipated.
At sixteen, Joel had been all pent-up rage, long limbs, and that fucking bright red hair. He'd stood up to Thomas in ways Gabriel hadn’t. Gabriel decided immediately that something needed to be done. Even though it had been years, he knew his brother, and he saw the man he had become. He knew enough of Madeline to see how toxic she could be, and Joel was too fucking pure for them. Truly, at first, he wanted to watch. Gabriel planned to keep tabs on Joel, so he could make sure Madeline didn’t do something crazy. When he received the Christmas card asking for money to send Joel to conversion therapy, was when Gabriel began to pull the strings.
It started simply enough. Joel was only a handful of months shy of seventeen at that point, and would be out of high school the following year. Gabriel made some phone calls back home to Emmitsburg, arranging for a job offer Thomas wouldn’t be able to refuse that wouldn't be available until the next summer.
He had one of his employees track down any family Madeline had in the area, which was when he located Marilyn, her mother, holed up in a ritzy Beverly Hills condominium. Gabriel wondered why Madeline hadn’t asked her mother for money to send Joel away, and further digging showed Marilyn had no money. The condo was left by her late husband, paid in full, but beyond her social security, she had no income.
Gabriel decided to buy the condo across the hall from Marilyn, hedging his bets Joel would be forced to seek refuge with her. He ended up paying handsomely to get the former tenant to vacate in the desired time frame. It was worth it, though. Gabriel made sure he was never out in the hallway when Joel was around. At the time, he hadn’t intended to meddle beyond securing Joel's safety away from Thomas and Madeline.
When he realized that Joel wouldn’t be staying with Marilyn for long, he had to come up with an addition to his plan. This was the most expensive change, and it involved purchasing a six-unit building in Echo Park and making sure Joel found the rent agreeable. Gabriel hired Phil, a friend of the employee who did Gabriel's investigating for him, to manage the units, offering him free rent in return for ensuring that the newly vacant unit ended up going to Joel.
Once Joel was out of the condo and safe in the apartments Gabriel owned, he was able to step back and let Joel live his life, free from the constraints and abuse of Thomas and Madeline.
Joel had grown into a handsome young man, even with limbs a little too long for his short stature. He was still small, and compact, but when he got frustrated, you could see his strength and tenacity radiate out like an exploding star. Joel was determined, but he was also reserved. Gabriel had hoped to see him blossom into his own once he moved into the apartment, but what he had seen was Joel turning in on himself instead. He had no friends, and he didn’t speak to his parents or grandmother. As far as Gabriel could tell, he got up, went to work, came home, and went to bed. On the weekends he would go to estate sales, and then go to work. One night, Joel had wandered to Hollywood, and that was the night he’d met Athena. Athena proved herself to be a loyal and devoted friend to Joel, and Gabriel loved her for it, but he was jealous of her, as well.
It wasn’t until Athena forced her way into Joel's life that Gabriel acknowledged he had feelings beyond those of a protective uncle for Joel. Athena took care of Joel in a way Gabriel desperately wanted to. She was over at his apartment, late into the night, as they watched movies and laughed together. Athena was the one who had gone to an estate sale with Joel and sought out the oldest books she could find, before presenting them to him proudly as if she had found the Holy Grail.
Athena got to touch Joel, smell his hair, and feel his skin. In the winter, Joel pressed his body against hers as they drank coffee together on the steps of her apartment. Gabriel fought hard to temper his resentment toward her, rationalizing she was only helping him care for Joel. She didn’t know it, of course, but that was inconsequential.
Athena kept trying to set Joel up on dates, and Gabriel kept foiling them. Gabriel was so invested in Joel by that point that no one besides Gabriel himself would do. Gabriel wanted to be the one who was allowed to savor Joel's kisses, and enjoy the pleasure of sliding into his tight virgin hole.
Gabriel began to obsess. His waking moments wrapped up in what is Joel wearing today, what is his work schedule, has Athena tried to tempt him with another unworthy cock? It was becoming exhausting and Gabriel ached with the need to be closer to Joel than he was.
It was two days before stupid fucking Davis walked into the bookstore when Gabriel managed to steal a t-shirt of Joel's from the laundromat. Not just any shirt, either, but his favorite shirt. As soon as Gabriel caught the scent of Joel's bargain detergent on it, his cock became hard as granite. He’d raced home, barely making it through the door before he tore his pants off and jacked himself off. He’d buried his face in the shirt, gasping for breath and sucking in Joel’s smell, as he shot what felt like a gallon of cum all over the floor.
Then Davis tried to insinuate himself into Joel’s life, like he had the right to be with Joel, to talk with him, or touch him. The idea of it drove Gabriel insane. For someone who was so fucking irrelevant, Gabriel could easily organize the Joel time line into two distinct categories. Before Davis and after Davis.
Joel made the decision to go on a date with Davis and spent so much time pep talking himself in the damn car, he might as well have held up a neon sign saying, “Please Come Attack Me.” Gabriel followed Joel that night because he’d had no intention of letting him end up at that restaurant with Davis. Fucking around with Davis’s car was easy enough, and Gabriel was fairly confident he wouldn’t make it to Hollywood, but he knew Joel would. What he didn’t expect was to have to fight off a tweaker, out of his mind on meth.
Gabriel decided after almost seeing Joel get his face smashed in with a crowbar that he needed to accelerate things. He was quickly falling for his Little Red, and Gabriel would absolutely not allow anything to come between them for one more day. When he got back to his own car, he called Phil, suggesting there might be a problem with the pipes, and if the building were to flood, the insurance would pay for it, before adding if the building were to flood, say, that night, there would be a nice Christmas bonus for him. Gabriel returned home, organized his things, and poured a glass of wine before cracking open his front door and putting on his favorite Vivaldi album, fingers crossed.
When Joel showed up at Marilyn’s, extending the offer of accommodation to him was the easy part. Convincing the skittish and beaten-down boy in front of him to accept had been the hard part. Maybe Gabriel had made a faulty decision to stay behind the scenes for so long. Being able to talk to Joel face to face revealed some truths Gabriel had missed. He could see the exhaustion in Joel’s eyes. It was etched into the fine lines around his mouth, and the tension in his shoulders. Joel wasn’t used to having anyone offer him help, and as such, was unfamiliar with how to accept it. Gabriel tried coaxing, he tried ordering, and finally Joel's exhaustion got the better of him, so he accepted the offer.
Now that Joel was his, Gabriel could fix the damage that had been done. He could heal Joel's wounds and love him back into a whole person. And that was the unspoken truth of it. Gabriel was in love with Joel.
Gabriel's phone pinged with a text alert. He looked down to see it was from Phil.
Phil: Your kid’s parents showed up. Asked where he was. I said I didn’t know and they left.
What the fuck? What were Thomas and Madeline doing in California again?
Gabriel fought down the panic rising up within him. It was imperative, now more than ever, that he come clean with Joel. But Joel had been so upset when they’d left his apartment earlier, it would be too much. Gabriel couldn’t do it yet. Fuck.
He leaned forward on the couch, burying his face into his hands and releasing an exhausted groan of his own. He didn’t even hear Joel get up.
“Gabriel?” Joel's voice was a whisper. It sounded detached and defeated, as if Joel had run a thousand-mile race in his head before he even opened his mouth.
Gabriel looked up, eyes softening as Joel stood there in red jeans that matched his hair and his favorite t-shirt.
Fuck.
His favorite t-shirt.
“We need to talk. Now.”