<div align="center">This will probably move if we're accepted. Gabriel &amp; Ash. References to MxM relationships will probably be included in later posts, but it will all be PG-13 and under. Set in an English University.)</div><br/><hr/><br/><ul class="bbc_list">Life, for Gabriel, would seem cushy and comfortable for many, and at first glance it would be easy to assume he led a charmed life attending University and travelling back and forth between Oxford and his hometown of Chester at weekends to visit his parents. And while his life was indeed a good one with many benefits and creature comforts, he still had problems, some major and some minor.<br/><br/>Social situations had always unnerved him, though within the last two years his social anxiety had only grown outrageously. Being in groups of people and one to one situations had the same effect in terms of making him feel panicked and nervous these days, and taking to anyone on a deeply personal level had become nearly impossible. He still had friends - being University made that mandatory in many ways, but he didn’t have a confidant, or someone that he could trust implicitly.<br/><br/>Also, Gabriel didn’t want to write his feelings in a journal or diary that could be discovered and read by absolutely anybody if he was careless enough. He guarded his emotions far too much to ever allow that to happen – and having people know his innermost thoughts felt like some kind of unholy violation against his person. It was like having his room ransacked and upturned.<br/><br/>Still. He felt like he was at a crux, a breaking point – he felt alienated, and only because he had let himself be. Take his relationship with his roommate, for example – he man he lived with in shared University accommodation – he barely knew the man, didn’t know what he liked or what he didn’t like and the only thing he did know was what course he took, and they had been sharing the same building for nearly three months now.<br/><br/>Gabriel stood, back against the cheaply-made kitchen counter, a glass of red wine in one hand and a recipe book in the other, sifting through ideas for dinner. He sighed heavily and shifted into an upright position, placing the book down upon the small table in the centre of the room along with his wine – though not before he had taken a healthy sip – and moved over to where the pots and pans were kept. He took out a badly-beaten wok that had seen better days and a pot to cook some pasta in; chicken pasta with stuffed mushrooms and cream seemed like his best bet so far, and it was the only thing in the recipe book that he had the ingredients for anyway.<br/><br/>He still needed to eat healthily, after all. He’d told Ash that he was more than welcome to join him, but he wasn’t sure whether he’d take him up on his invitation or not. He’d make an extra portion just in case, and there was extra red wine in the cupboard, or rosé chilling in the fridge.</ul>