Author's NOTE:
This story is the second of three. It relies heavily on the events in 'Tuesday', so reading that first is highly advised. It's an important for the sequence of events.
Despite this, there is an unspecified amount of time between Tuesday and this story. Wednesday takes place some unknown number of Tuesdays later.
...(...)...
Gabriel only had three keys on his key ring. Two of them fulfilled the same purpose, allowing him access to his house. It was pretty redundant, carrying around the both of them. But Gabriel couldn't throw the second one away. After all, it wasn't really his.
The final key was for the theatre, and he set it apart from the other two as he approached the old building. The key twisted neatly in the lock and the big door swung open.
Gabriel liked being in the theatre before it opened. When it was still just empty rooms and echoing passages. There was something so wonderfully unimportant about it when there was no one else to see. It felt average, normal. It felt a little bit like home.
He didn't really need to be here, as early as it was. Setting up the stage now would be pretty pointless. Besides, there was no one here to help him, and setting up was always at least a two man job. But he was there anyway.
He had nowhere else to be. No one to be held accountable to.
If any man were truly alone…well, it probably wasn't Gabriel, but he prided himself in being over dramatic every now and again.
His footsteps, which had been silenced by the carpet in the foyer, clicked on the hardwood of the stage. He took them off, loving the feeling of doing something so childish in a place where he was supposed to be a professional. His thick socks left him, one again, in silence.
With nothing to do, and no deadlines to meet, Gabriel never felt more lost that during mornings like this.
Most of his days were like this. Most of his time spent waiting. This was the barren greyness of his life, interspersed by brief flashes of colour. Sam's smile. His laugh.
Gabriel had never liked waiting. But he'd learned to endure it. It was worth it, after all.
"Hello Gabriel."
Gabriel glanced up from where he had been staring blankly and unintentionally at a random seat in the audience. While he had thought that he was alone, he wasn't really surprised to find that he had a visitor.
"Hello to you, my most favouritest of managers."
Lucy chose to ignore his salutation and continue to approach the stage. She must have come through the audience entrance, picking her way towards the stage where Gabriel sat cross-legged in the centre of the platform.
She didn't say anything, even when she was leaning against the stage, forearms braced against it. They both knew why she was here, and Gabriel just wished she would get on with it. Then he could go back to waiting for something real to happen.
He sighed. It wasn't like him to have nothing to say, no smart remark to break the silence, but he really wasn't in the mood for it. He'd butted heads with his control-freak of a manager enough times to know that it wasn't really worth it.
So they both continued to not talk. Which seemed to be a good idea.
But Lucy was important, and busy, and the time passing was making Gabriel uncomfortable.
"So, Luce." He broke the silence. "What methods of persuasion are we going to attempt today? Ooh! Have we made it to torture yet?"
Lucy just rolled her eyes at the strange little magician. He was absurd at the best of times. Gabriel had to concede that she had actually chosen a good time to accost him. Lonely mornings weren't without their downfall. They always seemed to turn up with just a little less hope than usual. Didn't mean he was going to give in though and he could be a stubborn bastard.
Lucy did speak finally, words marching out of her mouth in orderly little lines. Gabriel hardly listened. He'd heard it all before, and it was more interesting to count the wads of gum stuck to the bottom of the lifted seats than to subject his consciousness to the symmetry of her arguments.
That wasn't to say that he didn't listen at all. He paid just enough attention to feel the attack behind his manager's words. To take in the hint of cruelty.
And to know that she didn't want to say the words any more than he wanted to hear them. That knowledge took a little of the sting out of it.
"You can continue playing this silly game, Gabriel. Play pretend with him, if that's what you have to do. But if you don't move on, you'll no longer have a job." Lucy concluded, both sympathy and exasperation clear in her demeanour. Gabriel looked at her, thinking over the few phrases of her tirade he'd actually retained.
Time was running out for them. Gabriel couldn't continue to perform the same thing in the same small town anymore. It simply wasn't an option to stay.
He had to consider what Lucy was saying. He had to consider leaving this town, however much he didn't want to. Because he was being truly ridiculous, wasting time and money on an intuition. Nothing more substantial than a gut feeling.
He was not giving up. He would never give up. But he could give it a shot elsewhere. They could be packed up and gone within the day. Established somewhere else within the week. Pay would be better and they wouldn't have to resort to desperate and not completely legal measures to keep up with the brother's rent.
He knew that moving on didn't mean leaving Sam behind. He knew that it wasn't giving up. They'd still be trying, just in some other town, some other place. Maybe it would be better somewhere else. Gabriel had no way of knowing.
But he could feel, and it didn't feel right to leave this place. Gabriel firmly believed that one day, what they were doing would work. He'd find Sam again.
He'd find himself.
So no. Gabriel wouldn't leave. He'd buy more time, all the time that he could get. Just a day. A fortnight. A month. And he'd keep fighting for something that was floating further and further out of his reach.