Everything belongs to Kripke.
Gabriel reread what he'd been writing for the past month and almost smacked his head on the keyboard in frustration. What. The. Hell. Suddenly, everything he'd been trying to say had just evaporated. His burn to write was gone.
Fuck. He stared at his computer screen for ten more minutes before giving up with a sigh and closing his laptop. He had to go see Roché soon anyway, so getting there early couldn't hurt.
Feeling lost, he grabbed his leather jacket, slid it on, and felt around in the pockets to make sure he had his keys. Kali's set was still on the table where she'd left them the night before. He wasn't able to bring himself to put them away. It would mean accepting that she wouldn't need them anymore, that she wasn't coming back.
He walked down the hall and to the elevator, pushing the down arrow and waiting. Every second dragged by longer and longer until it seemed like he would be waiting here forever—but then, mercifully, the elevator dinged and the doors slid open. He hit the button for the lobby and slumped against the wall of the mercifully-empty elevator. He felt terrible and was glad that none of his neighbors had to see him like this.
He caught sight of his reflection in the shiny walls in front of him and felt even worse. He looked exhausted, a total mess. The grin that was always on his face was nowhere to be found. His hair kept falling into his eyes, which were faintly bloodshot and had dark circles beneath them. He hadn't been able to sleep at all the night before, so really, he couldn't be surprised, but still…
In the course of eighteen hours, he managed to fall apart.
Combing his fingers through his hair, he sighed. The same few strands fell right back into his eyes and he hung his head. God, what was he doing? All he wanted to do was curl up in bed and sleep until everything went away, but naturally, sleep escaped him. How was he going to get through this?
The elevator bumped gently as it settled on the ground floor. It dinged again and the doors slid open. Gabriel pushed himself off the wall and trudged through the lobby, pretending not to notice that a woman sitting on a sofa along the far wall was reading the debut novel of one L.K. Norse.
Like he needed reminding that his writing was fucked.
He skirted through the people on the sidewalks, sticking close to the buildings and purposely not looking into the windows of the three bookstores he passed on his way to Roché's office. It used to make him laugh and give him such a sense of pride to see stacks of his novel actually arranged in the front window with signs like "CHECK OUT THE BOOKS ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERS LIST" or "THE HOT DEBUT NOVEL" but now it just filled him with dread. He wasn't sure he'd be able to duplicate that feat, no matter how hard he tried.
No one on the street recognized him yet (he still hadn't achieved that level of fame, and he was relieved by that) but even if someone had looked at the back cover or the back flap to see his picture, they might not have realized it was him. In the picture (which, Gabriel suddenly remembered with a stab of distress, Kali had taken), he had been laughing, looking off to the left frame, at a particularly funny and sarcastic remark his friend Lucifer had made. Somehow, Kali had been right there with her camera, and when Gabriel saw it later, he loved it immediately.
Without that laughter on his face, he looked like a totally different person.
He made it to Roché's office ten minutes later, waving halfheartedly at his receptionist Becky, who waved cheerily back. He passed her desk and pushed open the frosted-glass door with its black lettering reading Balthazar Roché, slammed it behind him, and dropped himself in the chair directly across from his agent.
"Oi, can I give you a call back in a minute? A client just walked in." Balthazar glanced at his clock, thinking he'd misjudged the time, and furrowed his brow. Gabriel was early.
Gabriel was never early.
"Alright, later, then." He hung up and stared at Gabriel for a moment. "What happened?" he asked, a note of suspicion coloring his voice. He'd been pranked by Gabriel once or twice before.
But Gabriel sighed. He slouched in his seat and ran his fingers through his hair again before dropping his arm and saying, "Last night didn't go as well as I'd hoped."
"And by that, you mean…?"
"I was gonna ask her to marry me."
"She said no?"
"She didn't actually say no because I didn't actually ask. What actually happened is she dumped me before I could even ask."
Balthazar didn't look entirely convinced. "Wasn't it your anniversary?"
"Yeah. Three years."
"She dumped you on your anniversary?"
"She said she didn't realize what day it was."
He stared at Gabriel's dejected expression for a few more moments. "You're being serious, aren't you?" He didn't quite know how to deal with a serious Gabriel Speight.
"Yeah. Yeah, I am." As if to punctuate his point, he dug a bag of M&Ms out of his pocket and tipped a few into his mouth.
Balthazar leaned back in his chair, regarding Gabriel. Sure, sometimes the writer bugged the holy fuck out of him—he always turned things into a joke, he smarted off, he buzzed through sweets like nobody's business, and he actually missed the deadline on his first book by a month—but he was used to him now, and in the end, all the inconvenience had been worth it because Speight brought in a relative truckload of cash, considering he was a first-time novelist. A change in his demeanor was probably not a good thing. "How's your writing been?" he asked cautiously.
Gabriel froze for a moment in mid-chew before swallowing and said, "Since yesterday? Shitty. Haven't written a fucking word." He sucked in a deep, shuddering breath; it looked to Balthazar like he was trying to hold onto his calm exterior.
Now that he was looking closer at Gabriel, he wondered why he hadn't believed him right from the start. He looked strained and older than his twenty-seven years. Everything about him attested to his clearly-distressed mental state. Balthazar wasn't used to seeing him with that worn-out expression—it didn't look right on him.
"You should take a break," he said finally. "Maybe some time off will do you good. Take a holiday, go to California or Hawaii or something. Just don't come back with a new agent," he added, a lame attempt at a joke that was lost on Gabriel anyway.
He sighed and shook his head. "I don't want a vacation. I want to finish this fucking book."
"Look, I've seen other clients with writer's block." Gabriel flinched and closed his eyes at the phrase "writer's block." Those two words were a fucking curse. Balthazar went on. "For one thing, we don't even know if that's what you have right now. It could just be a temporary thing, until you get used to this huge change in your life. Or, if it's not, a holiday could snap you out of it. Give you some new perspective, eh? Just get your mind off the book for awhile. If you focus on it too long, it could drive you mad."
Gabriel pitched forward suddenly, burying his face in his hands and propping up his elbows on his knees. "Bit late for that," he mumbled.
Balthazar didn't know what to do. The last time a client had shown up looking this distraught, he'd tried to convince her to take time off, too. She ended up hanging herself a week later. He didn't want a repeat of that particular episode. It would be a PR nightmare, but more than that, Gabriel really was a hot writer and he had something to say. If he killed himself, the world would be worse for it.
"Please," Balthazar said. "Go hang out with some friends. Maybe just get out of the city. Get a change of scenery. Go see London, for fuck's sake. Do something, just don't sit in that flat of yours and brood. It won't do you or your novel any good. And get ready for that interview tomorrow."
"I'm not doing the interview," Gabriel said automatically, his head jerking up.
"Yes, you are. You'll do fine once you get some sleep. Everyone loves you, and I have the utmost confidence in you." Balthazar fixed his blue-eyed gaze on him sharply.
If he'd been his usual self, he would have fought hard not to do the interview. He would have promised to have the book done early—a promise they both knew he couldn't keep—or threatened not to finish it at all—a threat they both knew on which he was perfectly capable of following through—but he wasn't his usual self. For a few moments, Gabriel stared at him, his golden-green eyes looking flat and dull, and Balthazar wondered what was going through his mind. He saw the exact moment that the younger man caved from the hunch of his shoulders and the beaten look on his face. "Okay," he sighed.
"Go get some sleep and promise me you won't do something stupid. And if you do plan on doing something stupid, call me first. At least give me a chance to talk you out of it."
"I'm not going to kill myself," Gabriel said, standing up and tipping a few more M&Ms into his mouth. He pocketed the bag and tugged at the bottom hem of his jacket.
"Promise me, Speight."
Gabriel gazed at him again and Balthazar wondered again what exactly the young writer was thinking. "Okay. I promise."
"Sleep. Don't drink," he added, pointing at him with mock sternness.
"No booze, just bed," Gabriel confirmed, heading to the door.
"And hang out with your friends or something. You shouldn't be alone right now."
"I'm not going to kill myself," Gabriel repeated. He'd paused with his hand on the doorknob. "It would be far too selfish of me to deprive the world of this beauty," he added with the tiniest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Yes, it most certainly would. And you have an incredible talent—that would be a shame to lose, too."
Gabriel's serious face slipped back into place. Balthazar got the impression that it was the wrong thing to say. Reminding him of his inability to write was a mistake, in retrospect. "Yeah," Gabriel mumbled. "See you tomorrow then."
"Be here at nine. The interview is at eleven. Got it?"
"Got it. Anything else?"
Balthazar tilted his head to the side to think. "Yeah. Maybe you should go out tonight. Try to get laid."
Normally, Gabriel would have laughed or made a snide comment—something along the lines of "I don't have to try to get laid"—but he didn't today. "Yeah, I'm not so sure sex is gonna help."
"Bad suggestion. Sorry, mate."
Gabriel sighed and let himself out of Roché's office.
L.K. NORSE. Sometimes, I slay me.
Also, I really want to give Gabriel epic snuggles right now. HE NEEDS A HUG SO MUCH!