#the bads like picking a fight | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fidgetspringer-art · 1 month ago

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The story behind how Noah's eyes ended up the way they are. A healthy dose of angst with plenty of hurt/comfort. Freaturing Gabriel being a fucking saint and Noah being an absolute asshat the whole time. (What else is new)

Noah can feel his teeth rattle in his skull as his head hits the concrete wall of the alley. His vision whites out for moment, just long enough to have him stumble, struggling to stay on his feet.

It doesn’t matter, he’s pushed back again, hard, and this time his knees buckle and he hits the ground, only barely managing to break his fall enough to keep his temple from connecting with the cobblestones.

Someone shouts something down at him, and then he’s kicked squarely in the ribs.

He goes down like a sack of flour and stays there, wheezing up at the night sky through lungs that ache in his chest.

It’s not raining, not quite, but there’s the barest drizzle, enough for him to feel the tiny drops hit his overheated skin.

His eyesight is getting blurry, his left eye just about swollen shut, and the stars all look like little starbursts, clusters of blurry sparkles in the black.

More shouting. Then someone is straddling him, pinning him to the ground. He doesn’t bother to fight them, his body wouldn’t cooperate if he tried.

The shape above him draws their fist back, ready to deliver another blow, and Noah blinks, focuses on the stars instead.

The man’s knuckles split the skin across his cheek when they strike. Noah thinks he blacks out for a few seconds, he’s not really sure, but the next thing he’s aware of is that someone is urging the man on top of him to knock it off.

The weight across his body shifts and disappears. The toe of a boot connects harshly with his side one more time, hard enough to make him curl in on him self, and then there are hurried footsteps leaving down the narrow lane of the alley.

Noah coughs and then chokes when the motion jostles something sharp and painful in his chest. Shit, that’s definitely a broken rib he’s feeling. He wants to gasp for air, desperate to fill his lungs, but every time he tries he’s punished with a new flood of agony that makes his head spin nauseatingly. He doesn’t dare think about how bad throwing up would hurt right now.

He manages to roll onto his back again, whining helplessly as the pain makes black dots dance in front of his eyes.

He might have bitten off more than he can chew with this one. The guy he’d chosen to pick a fight with was a big bear of a man, an angry one too, apparently. Most of the time he’ll get roughed up just right and then let off with a black eye and a split lip. People don’t usually want to actually cause someone else real harm, even if they’re asking for it.

It had become apparent pretty quickly however, that this guy had no such reservations. He’d seemed more than happy to beat Noah to a bloody pulp.

It doesn’t take long for him to start shivering. It’s cold down here on the ground, especially with the rain starting to pick up. It’s slowly soaking his shirt and sticking it to his skin.

He fumbles around in his pocket, finding his keys first, then finally, his phone. A glance at the time tells him it’s far too late to be calling, but he just wants to hear a friendly voice right now, just for a little bit.

It rings for what feels like ages before Gabriel picks up. “Noah? What’s wrong?” There’s immediate urgency in his voice. Like he already knows that something isn’t right. Noah can hear music in the background, like he’s stepped away from a party to answer the phone.

Noah would feel guilty if he was capable of such a thing.

“Nothin’s wrong.” He rasps, cringing at how wrecked his voice sounds. “What’r you up to?”

There’s a long pause. Just the white noise of too loud music in the background.

“Noah, where are you?”

His heart aches. Count on Gabriel to see right through him. He sighs. “Dunno.”

“Why did you call me, Noah?”

Noah bites his lip, tasting the iron there. “M’not sure. Just wanted to talk, I guess.”

“Noah, you never call me just to talk.” Gabriel sounds near frantic. “Tell me you’re in one piece.”

“D’you remember that one movie we watched that one time, the one with the alien?”

Gabriel is quiet. Then he says. “You mean Alien?”

“That’s the one.” Noah smiles. “I liked that one.”

“Noah.” Gabriel’s voice is sharp in a way it rarely is. He doesn’t get angry. Not really, any time he raises his voice at Noah it’s with a glint of humor in his eye, even if Noah is doing something monumentally stupid. He hasn’t heard him like this before. “Where. Are. You.”

He really doesn’t know. He’d been crashing on Gabriel’s couch for the last week. He’d left two days ago, intending to head back further east, he just hadn’t gotten quite that far yet.

He’d wanted to stay in the city to maybe earn himself some cash before he set off, but he hasn’t had much luck. He was just going to have a drink or two, see if he could scam some idiot at cards or something.

Instead he’d picked a fight for reasons beyond his own comprehension.

“I’m fine, Gabriel.” He wheezes. “Not far from your place I think, just getting a drink is all.”

He can hear Gabriel moving, like he’s walking, the music gets more distant, overpowered by the one pouring out of the bar he’s laying next to. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

Noah shrugs to himself. He doesn’t say anything, just listens to the sound of Gabriel’s breathing on the other end of the line. He closes his eyes when the world swims unpleasantly, swallowing down the bile rising in his throat. Man, he’s about two minutes away from puking his guts up. That’s gonna suck.

“Talk to me.” Gabriel urges him. “Stay on the line.”

Noah huffs. “Wasn’t so eager to talk before.” He murmurs. His eyelids feel very heavy suddenly. He hasn’t slept in over twenty four hours. Couldn’t find anywhere to crash last night so he’d just stayed up, tried to get someone to take him home with them. But no luck.

“Well, I changed my mind.” He’s breathing heavier now, like he’s in a rush. “Don’t want you going quiet on me, okay?” He waits for Noah to hum an affirmative. “Tell me what you liked about the alien movie.”

Noah chuckles, immediately regrets it when his rib twinges sharply. He clenches his teeth to stifle the pained sound that pushes its way out of him.

“What was that, are you hurt?”

Noah waits for the pain to subside. “I’m fine.” He swallows heavily. “I liked the cat.”

“What?” Gabriel is panting now, it sounds like he’s close to running. “Oh, the movie. Yeah the cat is cute.” He swears under his breath. “Just tell he where you are. Please.”

Noah looks around. He can’t really see much from where he is. He’s getting really fucking cold. His hand trembles where he holds his phone to his ear. “I don’t know. Some alley somewhere.” He shifts, wincing. “There’s a bar.”

“I’m coming. Just hold on.”

Noah blinks back the wet that suddenly clouds his vision. “I’m not doing so well, I don’t think.” He admits, voice cracking. “I’m scared.”

“I know. It’s okay, I’ll find you, yeah? Just hang tight.” He can hear the sound of Gabriel’s boots on the asphalt as he runs. “You’re okay, I’ll find you. I’ll find you.”

Noah nods. Forgetting that Gabe can’t see him. “I really fucked up.”

“Fuck, Noah.” His voice is strained. “Please tell me you are where I think you are.”

Noah doesn’t know what to say to that. He blinks and feels his tears break away and run down his cheeks. He wonders what Martin would think if he saw him like this. If he’d look down at him with that disapproving frown, hip cocked and eyebrow raised. Or if he’d be worried too. Maybe he’d be upset, disappointed, ashamed.

Noah fights the urge to sob, knows it would only make things worse.

When Gabriel is quiet for a while, apart from the frantic pace of his breaths and the beat of his boots, Noah lets himself close his eyes again. Despite the cold and the pain and the little drops of rain pattering his face, it would be so easy to fall asleep like this. He’s so tired. His eyes feel dry despite the fact that they’re swimming in tears.

He doesn’t realize he’s dropped his phone until he listens for the sound of Gabriel’s breaths and can no longer hear them.

He doesn’t have the energy to pick the phone back up, so he just leaves it, it doesn’t matter anyway. He’s just going to take a quick nap, just enough to get some energy back. Maybe he can find somewhere to sleep for real later tonight.

He’s startled by the sharp echo of heavy footfalls rushing past the mouth of the alley, until they come to an abrupt halt and double back. He feels sick when it hits him that the steps are coming closer. Maybe that guy from earlier is back to finish the job. Or maybe he’s just about to get robbed by some other lowlife finding an easy victim. Not that he’s got much of value on him.

He jumps at the feeling of warm hands on his face.

“Shit, shit, shit.” A winded voice hisses. The hands cup his head, raising it up from the harsh texture of the cobble stones. “Fuck, you don’t look so good.”

Gabriel.

Noah forces his eyes open, well, one of them, the one that isn’t swollen shut.

Gabriel is kneeling above him, hands flitting over Noah’s face, assessing the damage. He has a wild look in his eye. Noah has never seen him this scared before. “Hey, stay awake for me, yeah?” He taps Noah on the cheek when he closes his eyes again. “Hey!”

Noah blinks. He winces and cries out when Gabriel tries to shift him onto his side, putting his weight onto his broken rib. “No, stop, please-” He chokes. The pain is enough to have his vision go dark for a second, threatening to black out. “Don’t-”

Gabriel seems to catch on. He pushes a hand up underneath the flap of Noah’s jacket and cups his ribs, pressing gently down on each one in turn until Noah yelps when he finds the broken one. “Fuck. You need the emergency room.”

Noah grabs his wrist and pries it away. “No way in hell.”

“Don’t be like that. You could have punctured something, this is serious, Noah.”

“Leave me alone Gabe, I’m fine.” he bats Gabriel’s hand away when it tries to check his skull for fractures. “I’ll be fine. Just go.”

“I’m not about to fucking leave you.” He looks around, as if to get help. Noah hopes to any god that will listen that he doesn’t get anyone else involved in this. “Can you stand?”

Noah grits his teeth and rolls, getting up on his hands and knees. He has to pause when the pain makes his vision swim dizzyingly, before he slowly pushes himself up and onto his feet. He never would have gotten himself standing without Gabriel there to help pull him up and support him.

His ribs twinge dangerously at the strain and Noah bites his tongue. He really is very close to throwing up.

“M’fine.”

“You’re not. This is bad, Noah, I don’t know if I can deal with this on my own.”

Noah wants to detach himself from Gabriel. Wants to push him away and shout at him to fuck off. But he knows he can’t stay upright by his own power.

He’s still fuming, though.

“Just find me somewhere to sleep it off. You don’t have to stick your nose in everything I do.”

Gabriel’s hand on his hip turns into an iron grip, hard enough that Noah flinches. “If you think I’m leaving you out here like this you’re a fucking moron.” He hoists Noah against himself, taking more of his weight. “Come on, the apartment isn’t far.”

Noah doesn’t remember most of their hobbling walk back home. But he does remember the relief of entering Gabriel’s warm apartment. That bone deep chill still clinging to him, but at least he’s out of the wind and rain.

Gabriel deposits him in his bed, gently helping him lay down so that he doesn’t strain himself too much. Noah reaches for the blankets, shivering, but Gabriel sees what he’s trying to do and softly takes his hand. “We gotta get you out of our clothes first, you’re soaked through.”

With his wet clothes in a pile on the floor, Gabriel finally pulls the blankets up and over him. He even brings another couple of blankets from the chest at the foot of his bed that he piles on top for good measure. Noah shivers, desperate to get warm, but his body temperature must be low enough that even with the blankets trapping all of his heat, it’s slow going.

“M’cold.”

Gabriel is squinting down at him, pulling and prodding on the skin near his eyebrow. “I know, I know, give it a second.” He tuts. “Nasty split, this one. Needs stitches.”

Noah swats at his hand. “S’fine.”

“Noah, it’s not fine!” Gabriel bellows.

Noah flinches. And that is enough to have Gabriel immediately soften. He sits on the edge of the bed, looking down at his shoes. “I’m sorry, I just-”

Noah sighs. “I know.”

Gabriel leaves the room and comes back with a glass of water and a handful of pills. He helps Noah take them, and he makes him drink the whole glass, even if the cool water makes Noah feel even colder.

“Get in here.” Noah tugs on Gabriel’s jacket sleeve. He’s still wearing the same clothes. He must be cold and wet too.

Gabriel pries his fingers loose. “You’re covered in blood, I need to get you cleaned up before it gets infected.” He heads into the en-suite bathroom and Noah hears the faucet in the tub start up.

Gabriel rids himself of his jacket and rolls up the sleeves of his shirt. “We’ll get you patched up in the bath, just stay warm while we wait for it to fill up, yeah?”

“C’mere, then.” Noah whines, and finally Gabriel relents with a roll of his eyes.

“Fine, but only for a few minutes, I gotta watch the bath.”

Gabriel’s body is like a damn furnace when he climbs under the blankets to fit himself against Noah’s side. He’s always ran hot, and Noah has always clung to him any time they’ve shared a bed. Greedily soaking up his warmth.

He can’t really move now, at least not to get on his side to get closer to Gabriel. But he lets him drape a strong arm over his chest and lean in, almost over top of him.

He sighs in contentment when that heat finally starts to leech into him. Thawing him out gradually.

Gabriel pets through his short hair while they lay there, just matching their breaths and sharing body heat. Noah waits for the inevitable moment when Gabriel will ask about what had gone down tonight. He knows it’s coming.

Thankfully he doesn’t ask now. He just lets Noah drift a little, worn down to the bone and soothed by the comfort of a familiar bed.

He flinches when Gabriel leans down to kiss him, startled by the unexpected motion. Gabe puts some space between them, just enough for Noah to catch on, letting him close the final distance himself.

Kissing Gabriel never stops feeling like coming home. It always settles something deep within him. Gabriel has always been a safe harbour. A sanctuary of familiarity that has been a constant in a life where nothing else ever is.

Kissing him chases away some of the pain for a moment, letting Noah focus on something else. All too soon he starts to push his luck, despite the agony in his chest. Trying to lure Gabriel into something more, but he’s not having it. He leans out of Noah’s space and pulls the blankets off of him.

He scoops Noah up into his arms as carefully as he can. Noah's ribs complain at being carried this way, but with a hefty dose of painkillers onboard it’s not too bad.

The bath is close to overflowing when Gabriel sets him down on the edge of the tub. He unplugs it for long enough to let the excess water drain, and then he’s helping Noah get in.

the water is almost too hot on Noah’s still chilled skin, but he gets used to it quickly, and soon he’s melting into it, letting it loosen up his tight and tense muscles.

Gabriel gets a first aid kit out from his bathroom cupboards while Noah gets settled, before he gets to work cleaning the blood off of his face with a washcloth.

It isn’t until Noah sees the water coming off himself run brown and then bright red that he realizes just how much blood he must have had on him.

Gabriel works silently, wiping the blood away and disinfecting the worst of the cuts, before he uses butterfly bandages to hold the split skin back together.

“You got a concussion?”

Noah nods. He’s had enough of them to know what it feels like by now. He’s definitely got one. Maybe the worst one he’s ever had.

Gabriel turns the flashlight on his phone on and tilts Noah’s face over with his fingers under his chin.

He shines the light in each eye in turn. Usually it’s a quick thing. Just checking whatever it is he checks when he does this, Noah doesn't know the reason. This time though, he takes longer, flicking the light back and forth, watching intently.

“Shit.” He hisses. “Put both your arms above your head for me.” Noah frowns. Annoyed. He’s about to refuse when Gabriel levels him with a hard stare. “Just do it.”

Noah listens. He winces when the motion jostles his ribs, but Gabriel seems satisfied, though still deeply concerned. “I think this might be a little worse than a concussion.”

“Why do you say that?”

Instead of telling him, Gabriel grabs the small mirror off the edge of the sink and hands it to him. “Watch your pupils.”

Noah watches as Gabriel brings the sharp glare of the flashlight up to his left eye. The pupil contracts down to a pinprick in response to the light.

He moves the light and repeats the same motion with the other eye.

The pupil doesn’t change.

Gabriel does it again. Taking the light away and then bringing it back. The sharp glare hurts, but his pupil stays the same, large and black.

Now that he’s looking, he realizes there’s a visible difference between them, even when the light isn’t directly in them. His left eye is normal, pupil and iris taking up about the same amount of space.

His right eye is so blown it looks almost entirely black. Only a narrow line of blue framing it.

He looks up at Gabriel. Sees the deep grooves of concern lining his face. “What does that mean?”

Gabriel puts the mirror back on the edge of the sink. “Nothing good. I think you have a brain injury, like a real one.” He chews his lip anxiously. “You should be in the ER, we don’t know how bad it is.” He stands, starts putting the first aid kit away. “Get washed up. I’ll find you some clean clothes to wear.”

Noah grabs the back of his shirt to stop him from leaving the room. “I’m not going to the ER, you can’t make me.”

They both know that’s a lie. But they also both know that trying to make Noah do something he doesn’t want to never ends well for anyone involved.

“You could be dying, Luce!” he’s raising his voice again. Clearly at the end of his rope. Noah hates seeing him like this. Wishes he hadn’t fucked things up so badly.

“I’m not.” He says, with all the confidence he doesn’t have. “I’m not dying, Gabe.”

They’re both idiots for letting Noah decide his own fate, but blessedly, Gabriel doesn’t push any more after that.

He gets Noah dried off and dressed in a pair of his own too large boxers and a shirt that hangs off of him like a dress.

Noah still isn’t nearly steady on his feet, so Gabriel helps him back to bed and tucks him in. “If you die in my bed I swear to god-”

Noah just hauls him down after him, arranging them so that he can rest his head on Gabriel’s chest without it putting pressure on his broken rib. “Go to sleep, Gabe.”

Gabriel grumbles some choice words under his breath, but eventually he shifts just enough to turn the light off, plunging the room into the darkness Noah’s eyes have been craving.

Gabriel wakes him several times throughout the rest of the night and the early morning, checking that he’s still breathing, and asking him a few questions that take Noah a little too long to wrap his head around. He wakes up by himself a few times too, flinching at an imagined fist flying towards him, jerking away from an impact that doesn’t come.

Gabe wraps his arms around him a little tighter every time it happens, and the slight pressure helps Noah ground himself enough to slip back off to sleep.

They sleep in until almost noon.

Noah feels it when Gabriel untangles their entwined limbs and heads off into the apartment. It doesn’t take long for the scent of bacon and eggs frying to reach him, but instead of the smell making his stomach rumble, it makes it turn over sickeningly and before he knows it, he’s throwing his head over the edge of the mattress and emptying his stomach.

Thank fuck for Gabriel’s foresight.

There’s a plastic bucket waiting for him on the floor and he manages to get most of his mess into it.

Gabriel comes rushing into the room at the sound of his heaving. He rubs the back of Noah’s neck while he hacks and coughs. Murmuring soothing words that Noah can’t quite make out.

“Better?” he asks when Noah finally stops vomiting and rests back against the pillows with a grimace. His ribs are fucking killing him.

“No.” He croaks, and he’s not lying. He still feels nauseous, like he’s one wrong move away from hurling again, but he manages to hold it in.

Gabriel wordlessly goes to empty and wash out the bucket. He replaces it by the side of the bed before he goes back into the kitchen to fetch a glass of some kind of fruit juice Noah can't identify. Not that it matters, it washes away the foul taste in his mouth just fine.

“Think you can eat something?”

Noah makes a face at the thought of choking down bacon and eggs right now, and Gabriel seems to have come to the same conclusion. He pats Noah on the thigh. “I’ll cut you up some fruit.”

They eat in bed together. Gabriel with his plate loaded up with meat and eggs and toast. He’s a big guy, and he’s good about eating enough, unlike Noah. Their portion sizes when Gabriel loads their plates up is always a comical sight, even if they’re eating exactly the same thing.

This time Noah’s plate has a handful of strawberries, a thick slice of honeydew melon and half an orange cut into wedges.

It’s surprisingly easy to get it all down.

“How do you feel?” Gabriel asks, he’s barely looked at his own food while he eats. He keeps glancing up at Noah, as if trying to catch something he’s missed.

“Like shit.” Noah says, chewing a strawberry. “Is my eye still doing the… thing?” he gestures vaguely to his own face.

“Yeah. It is.” Gabe doesn’t sound happy about it. Maybe that’s what he keeps looking at. Is it that obvious?

Noah’s left eye is still swollen pretty badly. He can barely see out of it. Maybe Gabriel has something he can ice it with.

“You sure you don’t want to go to the ER?”

Noah snorts. “Survived the night, didn’t I?”

Gabriel just sighs. Bone deep and exhausted. He looks it too, big dark bags under his eyes that Noah is sure matches his own. “You gonna tell me what happened?”

And there it is. He knew it was coming, sooner or later. “Picked a fight and got my ass kicked. What more is there to say.”

“Why’d you pick a fight?”

Noah just shrugs. When Gabriel keeps staring, he says. “I dunno, alright? I just did.”

“You’re gonna get yourself killed, you know that right?” He’s angry. Just barely keeping it behind bars. “One day you’ll get hit just a little too hard and you won’t be getting back up. What if that had been yesterday? What if I’d ran down there to find you already dead? Do you ever think about what that would do to me, or are you too fucking selfish to have ever considered it?”

Noah cringes at Gabriel’s tone. He’s used to being scolded by him, but this is different, there’s a raw honesty to him, an open fear that Noah hasn’t seen before. He doesn’t like seeing it now.

“I’ll just make sure I bite it somewhere you won’t find me, then.”

Gabriel’s jaw clenches. “Noah I swear to god-” He closes his eyes and takes a breath, before he grabs their plates and carries them off into the kitchen. Noah knows he’s being a dick. But then again, when is he not.

He takes the pills Gabe laid out for him and gets settled back under the covers. He’s still bone tired, and it doesn’t take long before he feels himself drifting off again.

#Lore tag #not art #This is pretty early on #before Martin #Noah is like 18-19 here and Gabe is 20 #all Noah knows how to do is pick fights get fucked and lie #I hate him #Violence warning for this one #not too bad but still

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