Chapter Text
GB woke up the next morning to, instead of the usual gentle awakening from Chang, the sunlight streaming in through the windows. While he was grateful for the extra sleep, he couldn’t stop the dangerous pang in his heart that immediately set his brain off on the anxiety spiral it tended to be set on.
Logically, GB knew that Chang still loved him and wanted him around and that their relationship wasn’t falling apart.
But when it almost seemed like your brain had a death wish, it didn’t tend to like to listen to logical reason.
GB continued to submerge himself under the covers, curling up into a refined fetal position and groaning. Maybe if he managed to fall asleep again, he could stop this spiral in his tracks.
Unfortunately, it seemed like the universe was against him today and he heard a gentle knock on the bedroom door. GB let out a quiet groan of disappointment.
“GB sweetheart? Are you awake?”
GB slowly unravelled himself from his position on the bed and poked his head up above the covers slightly. Chang smiled, though it never reached his eyes and he moved to sit on the bed.
“I thought you might have liked to come to eat breakfast with everyone, I made you your favourite…”
GB perked up ever so slightly at the idea of food, however, a part of his felt incredibly hesitant at the idea of having to socialize with everyone. Things around the cyborg house tended to be incredibly awkward as of late. Though, GB knew that he declined the offer of food, not only would it worry his significant other, but probably continue to drive a wedge between the two of them.
“A fry up?” GB asked instead, feigning more excitement than he felt. While he was hungry, he was also slightly nauseous with anxiety. He pushed the feeling away as well as he could.
Chang nodded and GB made a move to leave the bed, causing Chang to stand up.
“Just let me get dressed and I’ll make my way to the kitchen. It shouldn’t take me too long." Chang muttered a note of acknowledgement as he left the room, and as soon as the door closed behind him, GB sat down defeated on the edge of the bed. He knew that he needed to be fairly quick in his getting ready, but he just felt so defeated. The more he thought about all the pitying looks shot at him all morning, the more all GB wanted was a drink to drown out the anxiety. Why did everything always have to be so hard?
Once GB was finished his mini anxiety attack, he finished getting ready for the day, not bothering to put too much effort in his appearance, only aiming to make himself at least look slightly presentable to his family. When he entered the kitchen, everyone’s heads immediately turned in his direction. Some of the cyborgs murmured greetings to him, the ones who didn’t (Jet, G Jr. and Ivan) just waved and all quickly went back to either enjoying their meal or conversation.
Chang though greeted him with a hesitant peck on his cheek and GB allowed himself to be guided to his seat, a plate of breakfast being placed in front of him with a steaming cup of tea. GB managed to last almost two minutes of silence before the conversation ended up landing on him.
“Heeeey 007, how was the meeting last night?” Pyunma spoke up from his spot at the table. The rest of the group also turned their eyes towards him. GB couldn’t help the slight blush of embarrassment that warmed his cheeks. He shrugged nonchalantly as he used his fork to mindlessly pick at his meal.
“It was fine. I didn’t hate it so there’s that.”
He took a bite of his dish, attempting to avoid the eyes the were staring at him by instead looking down at his quickly cooling meal.
“Well, do you think you’ll be going back?” Francoise gently chimed in gently.
GB shrugged once more, trying to push down his sudden wave of irritation that came over him. It wasn’t that he was angry at his family, it was more just the fact that he was overwhelmed by all this sudden attention on him. For as dramatic of a person he was, GB had never enjoyed actual limelight outside of the stage, and especially none that brought overly personal attention.
“I made a promise and I don’t see any good in breaking it, so yeah.”
There was a heavy silence in the room and suddenly all GB wanted was for the room to swallow him completely whole. He abruptly stood up, nearly knocking his chair over and had to stop himself from literally running out of the door.
“I’m gonna go for a walk…”
He wasted no time in rushing from the room but couldn’t help but hear the tired, quiet, defeated voice of his boyfriend.
“I just don’t know what to do about him, team…”
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
GB didn’t come back to the house until much later. He made sure that he sent a text to Dr. Gilmore to tell the team that he wouldn’t be back home until much later. He made no promises that he wouldn’t drink but he did promise that he’d be home before at least ten that night.
It was probably a good thing that he didn’t promise such things because it didn’t seem to take too long for his walk to lead him to some seedy bar that he had no intention of walking into.
That is until he did. I mean how much could one drink hurt. He had enough of a tolerance that unless someone smelled his breath, there was no way to tell, and considering the state of his relationship, there wasn’t much of a concern of any kissing happening any time soon. And that didn’t upset GB at all.
When he walked in, the bartender gave him a quick glance before looking back down at the dish he was washing at the sink. When GB finally sat down, the man came over, asked for his drink order and then left the cyborg to his silent drink induced panic attack for a few moments.
Why was he doing this again? Did he want to upset everyone and start his sobriety clock again? Maybe he should just leave. Walk away before he made a mistake that would make it difficult to look everyone in the eye. Stop the cycle of disappointment, anger and heartbreak before he had to do it again for the second time in the past week.
But when the drink was set down in front of him, GB realized that he was nothing but a weak man. For all that he pretended to have some semblance of restraint and discipline, under the surface that seemed to be nothing but lies. Who cares if he was leading himself the same road that he had been on when he fell from grace and was too embarrassed to face Sophie? Who cares that Sophie was just replaced with Chang in this scenario, the same feeling of not being good enough for someone so kind and wonderful who had enough issues than to need to take care of a mess of a human being?
If he really could be considered that with the number of cyborg parts that riddled his body.
So, GB did the cowardly thing and swallowed that glass in mere minutes. And when it was empty, he ordered another, and another.
When the bartender finally cut him off, thankfully being a responsible barkeep, and forced him to call someone to pick him up, he decided to call Albert.
The phone only rang once before being frantically picked up by the other cyborg.
“007 are you okay?”
GB sighed heavily, already beginning to feel emotional, and trying to force himself to sound as sober as he possibly could, choked back a wave of tears.
“At the pub…,” he mumbled. “can you pick me up? M’sorry…”
Albert, who was pretty good at masking his emotions when he wanted to, coughed, clearly trying to cover his disappointment and replied. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a few, don’t go anywhere.” And hung up.
True to his word, Albert was there within minutes, sat in the driver’s seat of the familiar cyborg car with his signature blank look of masked emotion. GB felt sick to his stomach, though he wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol talking or the massive amounts of guilt that was washing over his conscience.
Silently, GB opened the door to the car and meekly strapped himself into the seat. Instead of looking at his companion, he opted for just looking at his lap instead. Once he was in, Albert drove away.
After a few moments of awkward silence, Albert broke the tension.
“So how much did you drink tonight Grant?”
GB flinched at the use of his first name, being mixed with Albert’s stern, but low-key anger made GB just know that the German was pissed.
GB shrugged, rubbing his hand across his face, trying to push away the tears that were just begging to fall.
“Not really sure…too much to be appropriate, I know that much.”
Albert let out a groan of frustration before lightly smacking the wheel. “Dammit, I don’t understand you. What made you want to drink tonight? What did we do?”
GB sat silently for a moment, struggling to gather his thoughts through the haze of the alcohol.
“This isn’t easy for me, okay? I’m being asked to get rid of a crutch that I’ve used for twenty years Al. Do you think I was ever taught to deal with my emotions through healthy means? No. When I grew up, I had no one, and nothing and then, when I got older, I used theatre and Sophie. But when I lost both of those because of my own goddamn arrogance and stupidity, all I had to turn to was alcohol. That’s all I knew to do. That’s it.”
By the time he had stopped his rant, GB realized that tears were now clouding his vision, as well as that the car had stopped moving. When he looked up from his lap and at Albert, he realized that the other man had completely deflated. GB quickly began wiping the tears from his face.
“Sorry, I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have yelled-“ GB began but was quickly interrupted.
“No! No, if anyone should be sorry, it’s me. I also shouldn’t have yelled, and I really shouldn’t have expected you to just be okay with everything that’s happening right now, immediately. For all that I’ve helped you through your alcoholism through the years, you’d think of anyone I should be more understanding out of anyone on the team.”
GB let out a shaky breath, sniffling. “It’s okay. There’s nothing you guys did that upset me. I’m just insecure about everything and sensitive right now. I’m mostly just worried about me and Chang though.”
Albert hummed and nodded in understanding. “Would it help if tomorrow, when you’re sober, we have one of our talks? You can just, talk to me about everything bothering you. No judgement, and minimal ‘fixing’.”
GB smiled, slightly sadly and nodded.
“Alright.”
With that out of the way, Albert turned the vehicle back on, signalled, and made his way back on the road to go back to the Cyborg house.
When they pulled in the driveway and opened the door, GB was surprised to find that the house was not only quiet, but all the lights were off.
“I told everyone to just head off to bed,” Albert informed quietly “I was hopeful that it wasn’t too intense and figured you wouldn’t want a firing squad when you walked through the door.”
GB smiled wobblily. “Thanks, Albert.”
The German patted him on the shoulder and wished him goodnight before heading into his bedroom. GB took a deep breath as he headed to his and Chang’s joint room and as quietly as possible snuck himself in, closing the door behind him. If he was lucky, his counterpart was already asleep or would have the mercy to at least pretend he was.
As quiet as he could, GB got ready for bed, trying to not wobble and fall over in his inebriated state. When he was at least not clothed in his outfit for the day, he crawled under the covers and found himself staring at his partners back in the dark.
Suddenly another wave of sadness and fear washed over GB as he couldn’t help the silent tears begin to drip from his eyes. He couldn’t help but now feel the fear of losing another person in his life due to his mistakes. Soon he was quietly sobbing, and he couldn’t help himself from reaching forward and clutching onto Chang as if he was a lifeline. A drowsy, but concerned voice spoke up.
“Grant...?”
His name being spoken just made GB cry even harder and he felt Chang turn in his grip and arms envelop him, a gentle touch rubbing up and down his back in comfort. No one spoke that night, but GB found himself falling asleep in his boyfriend’s arms. He wished that it made him feel better about the state of their relationship, but it really didn’t.