It's been five weeks since Gavin came home and he was getting physically and mentally getting better everyday. He wasn't completely afraid of everyone anymore but he still flinched and started to cry when he was yelled at. Which, because of who his boyfriend was, is going to be a problem.
"Gavin, the viewers want you to do the Rage Quit videos with Michael" Geoff told him one day.
"I'm sorry, Geoff. I..can't. Not yet at least" Gavin said. Geoff sat down at the table with him.
"Do you want to talk about it? Because you can talk to me" Geoff offered. Michael was heard through the wall screaming at Kerry (who was in Gavin's place at the moment). Geoff noticed Gavin tense up when he heard Michael start to yell. Geoff sighed.
"Gavin, he's not yelling at you" Geoff said. Gavin looked at him but stayed silent.
"Are you okay?" Geoff asked. Gavin shook his head slightly. Gavin never talked about what Dan did to him. No one ever wanted to ask him. So they never did. Jack mentioned how it wasn't probably best for him to keep all of it bottled up in his mind and Geoff agreed but no one knew what to do. Gavin closed his eyes tightly. Geoff was about to say something but Lindsay came into the break room with them.
"Hey Gavin" she said cheerfully like she didn't know what was going on, but everyone did. "Look what I brought in" she said placing a plate of cookies in front of him. He opened his eyes. "Do you want some?"
Gavin nodded and slowly reached for one but stopped and looked at her. She nodded and Gavin smiled and took a cookie. Lindsay smiled and looked at Geoff who wasn't smile. She frowned in questioning and he motioned for her to take a step outside.
"What?" Lindsay asked.
"He shouldn't still be afraid of Michael. Everytime Michael raises his voice he just shuts down and...God, I just want normal Gavin to come back. The one that laughed off Michael's screaming. I hate seeing him like that, like this" Geoff said. Lindsay put her hand on his shoulder.
"We just need to be there for him right now, to catch him if he falls. We can't give up on him. We just need to give him time" Lindsay said. Geoff sighed.
"How many cookies did you think he ate?" he asked.
"Probably the one that I said he could eat"
"That's my point! Why is he doing that? What happened to him?"
"He's grieving, Geoff. He's still afraid but he is getting better" she explained.
"It's been a month now. I thought he'd be back to normal but he's just... This is really hard for me" Lindsay pulled Geoff into a hug.
"It's hard for all of us" Lindsay whispered to him.
"You fucking idiot, Kerry!" Michael yelled. Geoff pulled away from Lindsay and went back into the break room.
Michael turned off the game and glared at Kerry who was laughing.
"What?" Kerry asked innocently. Michael growled and went to edit the video.
"What are you doing? Can't you just get Gavin to...oops" Kerry stopped talking and waited for Michael to blow up at him. Michael was always protective of Gavin but since they started...well actually since all of this started he was even more protected. Plus Michael never wanted Gavin to see him blow up like he did in "Rage Quit". It would just put him back to square one.
"Why don't you fucking do it, Kerry" Michael snapped. He actually reacted a lot calmer than Kerry expected. Either way Michael went back to editing the video.
"Sorry. I didn't mean for it to be like that" Kerry said.
"Just let me cool down, alright?" Michael yelled. Kerry watched him for a moment then walked away. He was stopped by Barbara.
"Hey, are you guys done with the Rage Quit?" she asked. Kerry nodded.
"I'm worried about Michael. He's overly protective of Gavin. Like, he won't even allow Gavin to edit the Rage Quit because he's afraid Gavin would go into a panic attack from him screaming" Kerry said.
"So, Michael loves Gavin and doesn't want to hurt him. What's wrong with that?" Barbara asked. Kerry shrugged.
"I guess I think about it too much" he said.
"We've all think about it too much. It should have never happened but we are lucky Gavin came back alive. Best we can do is just let the problems solve themselves" she smiled at him.
"Hey where is Gavin?" he asked.
"I think he's in the break room with Geoff" Barbara said. Kerry thanked her then walked off.
"Hey guys. What's up?" Kerry asked.
"Nothing, what's up with you?" Geoff said. Gavin was looking at the plate of cookies and didn't look up at him.
"Just got done with the Rage Quit. I think I make Michael really mad during those. Something Gavin's not capable of" Kerry said trying to get a reaction. Gavin looked at him.
"What?"
"I can make Michael mad faster than you can" Geoff watched silently between the two. Gavin smirked.
"I bet you one hundred dollars I can make him blow his top before you can tomorrow" Kerry smirked back.
"Deal" Gavin held out his hand and they shook on it. Gavin walked off to go meet up with Michael. Kerry looked at Geoff.
"What?" Kerry asked.
"Do you really think it'd be a good idea for Gavin to make Michael mad?"
"Hey, he can handle it. If he couldn't he wouldn't have made the bet" Geoff thought about it and then agreed.
Gavin slowly walked into the Achievement Hunter office.
"Michael" he said.
"Hey what's up?" Michael smiled at his boyfriend. Michael stood up and pulled Gavin into a tight hug but quickly released him when he winced in pain. "I'm sorry. I keep forget about your ribs"
"It's alright. You didn't do it on purpose" Gavin said. Gavin lightly pushed Michael back into his chair and straddled his lap.
"What are you..?" Michael started but Gavin shushed him.
"I think you need to calm down, Michael" Gavin said before pressing his lips against Michael's. Michael melted into the kiss.
"Gavin..." Michael whispered when they finally pulled apart. "do you want to...um...go catch a movie or something?"
"Sure. That'd be top" Gavin said with a smile. Just then Burnie slammed open the door. Gavin jumped off of Michael and turned to face him.
"Hey...um...Michael I need to tell you something" he said calmly. Michael got up and followed Burnie out of the office.
"What?" Michael asked.
"I don't know how exactly to tell you this... You need to come with me for a moment" Burnie said.
"What's going on?" Michael asked now aware of the concern and fear hiding in Burnie's eyes.
"Look, I just have to inform the office of something. We are going to the break room for a second" Burnie said. They started walking to the break room.
"Wait, if you need to tell the office shouldn't we get Gavin too" Michael said.
"No! You can't tell Gavin. It'll send him back into the state he was in when he came back" Burnie warned. Michael stayed silent until everyone (minus Gavin) was in the break room.
"Guys, as we all know we almost lost someone on our team recently" Burnie said. There was a murmur of agreement.
"Well, Gavin has been doing better but he's still a little nervous around us" Burnie said.
"What does this have to do with anything? Why did you call us all here" Michael asked. Another murmur waved over the employees who were wondering the same thing.
Burnie sighed and rubbed his head.
"Dan was going to have a court hearing he was out on bail and he hasn't showed up to his hearing and the bounty hunters haven't been able to find him" People mumbled to each other trying to understand what this would mean.
"Dan escaped and the police think he's going to go after Gavin again" the crowd gasped. "I don't want Gavin to know about this because he will go back into his...um...previous state. I had to tell you guys because we're his frie-...we're his family. And we can't lose him again"
"We won't lose him again" Barbara said above the crowd.
"But what are we going to do?" Monty asked.
"Wouldn't the police put Gavin in, like, witness protection?" Joel asked.
"No. No, we can't let Gavin go into witness protection. He'll know something is wrong and he'll go back to freaking out and jumping at every little noise" Geoff said. Burnie quieted them before he started talking again.
"I just wanted to tell you guys. Dan might not take an opportunity now that we all know who and what is going on but we shouldn't let Gavin leave alone and we can't let our guard down. We were lucky Gavin is okay after all this"
"You call that okay? He's afraid of everything. He isn't as jumpy as before but he's still afraid of everything!" Michael yelled.
"You need to calm down. Everytime he hears you in Rage Quit he goes all quiet and tenses up" Lindsay said. Michael looked at everyone.
"He hears me?"
"Dude, everyone hears you" Monty said. Michael sat back down and looked at the floor.
"That's all I really wanted to say. Don't tell Gavin. Just let him recover first. And just keep an eye out" Burnie finished. Michael was one of the first to leave the room. Monty and Kerry were following him.
"What?" Michael snapped. Monty shrugged.
"Nothing. We just wanted to tell Gavin something" Monty said.
"Burnie told us-"
"It doesn't have anything to do with that" Kerry interrupted. Michael stopped talking and continued walking to the office.
"Hey, what was that about?" Gavin said.
"Okay, we aren't supposed to tell you" Monty started.
"Monty, what are you doing?" Michael asked.
"It was supposed to be a surprise" Kerry said.
"You're gonna be in RWBY" Monty said. Gavin smiled.
"Are you serious?" Gavin said. Monty nodded.
"If you want to that is" he said.
"That'd be...tops" Gavin said. Michael liked seeing Gavin happen. He'd have to pay Monty and Kerry back later.
Hey Party People,
This chapter is longer because the other chapter was only 600 words which is a disgrace to...everything. Have fun reading!
Live it Off the Wall
~Star7K~
