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xaviermattthews · 1 year ago

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who: xavier matthews + vanessa gable // @vanessagable

where: x's los angeles aparment, circa april 2020

trigger warnings: drugs, cheating mention, .nsfw mention, alcohol

VAN --

It felt unnatural to keep something from Xavier. She was often more vulnerable with him than what she had ever been with any other person.

Which was part of the problem. And she knew that.

They often skirted talk about her husband, which is why the conversation about his career and what jobs he was booking never came up. She'd lived in the pretend of it for awhile -- that everything could somehow be sustainable even with change. And she had known X well enough and long enough to know that changed was never something he coped well with.

But she was leaving in two days. She couldn't put it off any longer.

For lack of any other offering she could think of, she arrived knocking on his door with a bottle of the most expensive tequlia she could find in hand.

And a rock in her stomach.

X --

A knock on the door and X's head immediately sprang up to look at the back of it from where he sat on the couch neatly cutting lines with his credit card. Had he texted for more white? He probably had and had forgotten after he got distracted by the burst of inspiration he had that was scribbled in almost incomprehensible letters in his notebook.

With his shirt fully unbuttoned where it hung on his body, he put his credit card down and got up and walked around the coffee table to open the door.

It wasn't his dealer, but it was a much better surprise.

"Baby," He greets with the kind of smile he only got when he's gotten more into a bottle of Hennessy than he should have. His arm hooked around her shoulders to usher her into his place and to draw her into his body so he could kiss her forehead and her temple and the side of her face in an onslaught of affection before he releases her so he could wander back inside.

"What you doing here?" X asked as he collapsed back down onto the couch, slumped in how he sat with both his arms held out in a beckon for her to come join him -- across the room was too far for his liking.

VAN --

The utterance of 'baby' makes her stomach twist as much as his smile does -- because she knows that smile. It means he's been using for an hour at least and had a round of shots all to himself.

She should have told him she was coming. She should have asked him to be sober when she got there. She shouldn't have brought tequlia. She should have done all of this two weeks ago.

She's grateful that he can't see her face as he's kissing over it -- she'd never much had a poker face. Especially not with him.

Van's eyes follow him as he makes his way back from the couch, still wearing her denim jacket as she sets the bottle down on the table. It's impossible to look anywhere but the white lines, but she fights the urge she feels to swipe her had across them and scatter them to the wind. She had a terrible feeling that he'd lick the remnants off of her fingers for the taste.

"Um, I need to talk to you," she starts, her fingers laced in front of her as she takes a breath and considers him, not moving from her spot across the room.

"How fucked up are you right now, X?" X --

When she places the bottle down, he instinctively sits forward to pick it up, inspecting the label. Tequila, not his favorite but it was at that moment because it was forty proof and in front of him.

He doesn’t open it, instead he places it back down as he looks across the room at her, trying to discern why she was across the room and not on his lap. Had he pissed her off somehow? Probably.

Everything was a little hazy to him right then.

“I’m not fucked up.” He tells her, even though the fact he couldn’t do another line then because they were having a conversation was starting to make him too aware of his own heartbeat.

“What do you want to talk about?”

VAN --

"I'm not fucked up."

How many times had she heard that one? How many sound checks had he'd stumbled into? How many times she'd picked him up off a green room floor? How many times with his mouth against hers and she tasted something too chemical?

Enough times. Enough to know a lie when she sees it.

She shakes her head slightly to herself. There's no way this goes well or even halfway well. But if she tries to wait for a moment where he's sober she could be waiting years or until the day he dies.

Van bends down to pick up the bottle of tequlia, she pulls out the stopper with a heavy sigh and takes a mouthful and swallows it clean before putting it back down.

"Um. Lee got a job. A big one. Lead in a new series based on some James Patterson shit. For Netflix. He quit the soap."

X --

X’s mood instantly sours at the mention of her husband, the man an ever present figure in the background of his mind whenever he was around Van. Easily ignored, but still there.

“Am I supposed to say congratulations?”

He tended not to say anything about him if he could help it, he was rarely nice on the topic.

VAN --

"No," Van says through a frown, brows furrowed as she looks at him and crosses her arms over her chest.

Even getting him to acknowledge the man she'd been married to for over a decade was treated with the same amount of dread and distate as being sat for a root canal; it seemed the longer she knew X the more petulant he became about someone else having the audacity of knowing her first.

"But it's filming in Toronto. And it's a six month shoot. And I'm gonna go with him."

X --

There was silence in the immediate aftermath of her news, one that stretched on for an eternity though it count by have been more than a few seconds.

Then he laughed.

The sound was mirthless, devoid of any joy as his mind tried to find where he thought she thought the punchline was in her words because that’s what it had to be. A joke.

“You’re not going to fucking Canada, Van.” He tells her, sitting forward again so he could reach for the tequila, this time he was taking the top off and taking a swig of it.

“Coming in here saying stupid shit like that like we ain’t got gigs lined up.”

VAN --

There's absolutely no comfort brought by the sound of his lap, the line between her brow only growing deeper as his tone follows.

She doesn't know if she's annoyed or worried.

Annoyance takes the drivers seat.

"I am going to Canada. In two days," she adds, posture unmoving and tone more defiant than what she'd initially planned.

"The label knows and they're sending in a sub bassist until September."

X --

X’s hand lifts to his face, rubbing his eye as he found himself the sudden victim of a migraine of sorts. He places the bottle down at his feet and then looks to his bandmate, his expression that of simmering rage.

“You’re bailing on us to go follow your husband to Canada for his job?”

He was trying to follow the threads here, but so far the picture they displayed wasn’t making much sense.

VAN --

She narrows her gaze at him.

"I'm not following him. I'm going with him."

Her tone is becoming more firm and less contrite.

"And I am not bailing. I am taking a break, Xavier."

X --

Now she was starting to grate on him.

His attention diverts to the lines he carved out that were still on the table, the rolled up 100 dollar bill he had been using now picked back up and re-rolled so he could use it as an aid while he leaned over and snorted the closest one to him with little residue left behind.

He places the bill down again and straightens up, wiping his nose with his thumb before he’s looking at her again, a little more wild-eyed before.

“If you fuck off to Canada for six months you better not think you’re going to come back here and still be a member of this band.”

VAN --

He couldn't do it. He couldn't have one single real conversation with her without having having to literally put a line in the middle of it.

And she finds the worst part is is that she doesn't stop him. She knows she can't -- she just watches him do it, like watching a car wreck happen from three lanes away.

"It's just a break," she repeats to him, her voice remaining even but grounded. "We've been on tour for the better part of the year. I need a break and I need to spend time with my family…"

X --

That wired feeling he likes that takes over his whole body felt like too much when he was faced with a waking nightmare — losing her.

He could deal with anything but that.

“So we’re not your fucking family now?” X asked, on his feet suddenly, his hand movements erratic as he ranted.

“You want a fucking break while we’re on the verge of our big one. We’re so fucking close to it and you want a sub to step in so you can be a full time wife.”

It makes his skin crawl to think about the two of them together, and it would be all he could think about the entire time she would be gone.

“That’s fucking pathetic, V. You can see that, right?”

VAN --

"That's not what I fucking mean and you know that," she argues when he puts words into her mouth, gaze following his abrupt movements as suddenly he's up from the couch.

As if the band hadn't been what had kept her afloat the last several years. As if it wasn't where she was at her happiest and most proud. As if she hadn't poured just as much of herself into it as he had.

She takes in a long breath through her nose and squares her jaw.

"It's not pathetic to want to be happy with my husband. There's nothing wrong with that. You just have a fuckin vendetta…"

X --

“You tryna be happy with your husband every time you let me make you cum?”

It’s a low blow and he knows it as soon as he says it, but he doesn’t apologize because he never has before and he isn’t about to start now.

She was integral to everything Submergence was, everything he was, and he had never had to truly contend with the idea of her not being there.

His pacing was as sloppy and out of time as he was, only coming to a halt when he was stood directly in front of her. It was then that he takes her face in his hands, his hold gentle as it always was when he touched her.

“Please, baby. Please. Don’t fucking do that. I don’t know how to do this without you. I don’t know how to be me without you. He doesn’t need you, we do. I do.”

VAN --

It's not that what he says isn't fair or unearned -- he's in the right on both fronts on that.

But he's never used their affair against her as a slight, or made her seem horrible about it as she often felt -- not outside of songs, at least. It stings and it shows on her face, her nose wrinkling in disgust as she looks away from him.

Her face is only brought back to him by the guidance of his hands, her jaw still clenched stubbornly to keep her lips for quivering.

It isn't fair for him to call her baby right now.

"You don't need me. You just said I'd be out of the fucking band if I go. So you must think you can get on just fine, huh?"

X --

He leans down as she speaks, his forehead pressing to hers gently as they exchange warring words. X had never cared much about how combative he could be, he was always someone who found some thrill in the battle, but it was hard not to hurt himself in the process when his opponent was Van.

They had always been on the same team.

“You know that’s not true. I know you know that. Stay.”

VAN --

"How am I supposed to know that's not true, you just fucking said it…"

Her voice is hollowed, a far cry from the soul she usually sings in when she's at the mic backing him up.

There's still hurt in her eyes as she looks up at him, their foreheads togethers as her breath shakes.

"Stay. Stay and do what, X?" she questions, her voice low and between them. "Hmm? Stay and watch you do another line?"

X --

His shoulders tense at her final question, his thumb stroking against her jaw as his face lifts from hers and he takes a step back from her, oscillating between anger and hurt at a speed so rapid he couldn’t dissociate the two.

“It’s s fucking line, Van. Don’t make it sound like it’s something it’s not.” There was an unspoken agreement in the band — don’t mention X’s using. He never took it well, no matter what kind of place it was coming from.

“Fucking coming over here acting like you can tell me how I’m supposed to be living when you’re about to throw everything away for the same motherfucker who’s been weighing you down since you were a teenager. Least I can do another line if I want to. You can’t do another fucking life.”

VAN --

"You're doing coke in your apartment alone at 9 pm on a Tuesday, so maybe it's exactly how it sounds," she says, eyes still on his as he pulls himself back from her.

She knows she's struck a nerve in him -- one that she'd previously been protecting. She's made so many excuses over the years for the way he used, she's tried to put herself between him and the highs as if she could be the more alluring and safe option than whatever pills or needles he could get his hands on.

Van realizes with a feeling of sinking that she's probably only further pained him and made everything worse. Having but not having her killing him just as much.

"He doesn't weigh me down," Van argues, even when in her gut she knows that he's right. But it's like him and his vices, and she rationalizes herself around it the way trees in the forest do when there's an abandoned car or bike in their way.

"When you're married you make sacrifies. You give shit up when you love someone," she swallows hard, hurt on the edges of her next words.

"You only love one thing that much, so I don't expect you to understand it."

X --

“Fuck you.” X says without hesitating, the bite in his delivery as deliberate as he was when he had been cutting the very lines she was judging him for. He’s a little unsteady on his feet as he makes a swipe for his box of cigarettes that was open on the coffee table, taking one from it and tossing the box back where he got it before he held it between his lips to light it.

He needs to fill his lungs with something other than air, to prove to himself there was something in his chest other than the hollowness he feels at the conversation at hand, at the fact he would lose her to another country and to a man who could live a hundred life times and not deserve her in a single one of them.

( There was no man more qualified than him to make that observation — it was true for him too. )

“You’re right though, I don’t understand. I don’t understand how you can be as good as you are at what you do and still be unwilling to be great. Because you’ll never be that with him dragging you down. One foot in this world, one foot in his. Half the focus, half the talent, half a person. Who the fuck are you, Van? Do you even know?” His question is asked around an exhale as he breathes out cigarette smoke, his stare locked on her from across the room. Even then, she’s too far away, yet he’s supposed to be able to stomach her in another country.

“Because right now, I don’t. You’re just some guy’s wife. It’s pathetic and it’s beneath you. And if that’s what you want to be, if that’s all you are, get the fuck out of this apartment, get on that plane and lose my fucking number. Have fun playing house, and when the house comes down on you and you realise you made a shitty call, don’t come knocking. Bassists aren’t hard to come by, we’ll be just fine. I’ll be just fine.”

VAN --

"Fuck you, too," Van bites right back without a moment's breath, like a reflex in spite of the fact that her voice rarely holds that kind of venom for anyone -- especially him.

She watches him with her jaw heavily set, biting on the inside of her lower lip as her eyes keep a narrow gaze on his movements.

Vanessa Gable feels everything from the heart, but in this moment she'd rather draw her own blood than give him the satisfaction of her tears.

Even when he's making her feel a foot tall.

Even when he's right.

"Do you even know?!" she shouts at him incredulously, the force of the words taking her a step forward.

"Because for the last three months you haven't looked me in the eye, X, you've fucking looked through them. This is the first time you've listened to a word I've had to say in weeks. We don't even fucking play together anymore because every fucking gig of the last leg has turned into the Xavier Matthews ego hour. And the last time you fucked me you didn't give a single fuck that it was me. You weren't even on the same fucking planet as me, there wasn't a fucking thing in your eyes and I -- I haven't ever felt that fucking used in my entire life so I think you've forgotten who the fuck I am, too."

She inhales sharply, eyes dead on him.

"So you know what? I'll be pathetic. And while we're at it, mark me down as a coward -- because if this is the path you're going to keep going down then I can't fucking walk it with you. I won't. I'm not gonna stay here and watch you run your fucking genius into the absolute waste that you seem to be aiming for."

X --

“There. That.”

X says with a point of his index finger at her, her words bringing about epiphanies in real time for him. The syllables feels like a scalpel to him, a phantom incision that slices from stomach to sternum until he’s nothing more than spilled guts on the floor.

“We’re not on the same planet. You can’t even comprehend where I’m at, what I’m aiming for.”

X thought he was clever enough to not befall the same fate as Icarus — he wouldn’t fly too close to the sun, he would become it instead.

A band that revolved around him, a fan base that found illumination in the light he cast, ambition that burned brighter than any open flame.

He was the fucking sun.

He had it all figured out. He had himself all figured out.

He never factored in Vanessa Gable.

The scorched earth that he would have to leave in his wake had never been a factor he cared about until it became her. Until it was soft hands and kisses that had meaning and talent that was enviable even to him. Until it became a feeling that was bigger than he was.

She’s all he wants to hold even though he knows she’ll turn to ash in hands if she stayed.

“If I’m that hard to be around, if you think I’m just a dead end road, go. You want to know why I’ll always choose the drugs over you? Because they choose me back. You never did. You never will. So you’re right. You are a fucking coward. So run back to your husband, to your marriage, to what’s easy and expected of you and when I win a Grammy and I’m stood there thinking who to thank I’ll look back on this moment and I’ll be so sincere when I say your name because I’ll be eternally grateful for the only good thing you ever did for me and that’s you getting the fuck out of my life.”

VAN --

She used to be able to tell when he would say something he really meant -- she could be laser-eyed and find the truest sentiment in the layers of bullshit he displayed to the world. She could find it in his lyrics and his rambling on-stage speeches, and in everything he ever said to her when it was just the two of them locked up in a hotel suite.

And even when she didn't agree, she always believed.

And now the waters are more foggy under the layers of mixed substances -- it's harder to tell anymore if there's a difference in what he's saying now or things he's felt all along. But the unwavering conviction is there, so it must be true.

And maybe he's right. Maybe this is the best thing she's ever done for him. Maybe she's been the selfish one all along.

Her head hangs in defeat a moment, amber hair curtaining her face as she sniffs sharply and wipes her eyes, nodding to herself before she brings her eyes back up to him.

There's tears in her eyes and a forced smile of pure heartbreak, making a last-ditch effort to give them both a goodbye that they could live with.

"I really hope you get that, Xavier," she tells him, and while her voice is hoarse and wavering, the sentiment is sincere.

"I look forward to being a footnote in your story."

With that, she turns and makes her way out of his door, closing it calmly behind her so as to not cause any further intrusion into his life.

She'd clearly done enough.

#flashback.#thread.#ft. vanessa gable.#van 008.#timeline: april 2020.#vanessagable #drugs tw #cheating mention tw #alcohol tw #.nsfw mention #long post cw

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