great! the rundown is they met in 2015 through the bmi musical theatre workshop in new york city where gabe was a composer and the other was a lyricist, they paired up for their second year project but didn't get invited to the advanced workshop after and it's kind of assumed that they didn't get in because while the lyricist is very talented, gabe isn't really, and he's kind of holding them back but the lyricist is too loyal (or stubborn) to ditch him and find somebody else. since then gabe went to grad school in austin from 2018 to 2021 and then relocated to seattle a few months ago after he got dumped because he's sensitive and impulsive and changes cities when he gets his feelings hurt, and while i initially had in mind that the lyricist would've been in austin at the same time doing their mfa in playwriting, that doesn't have to be the case. either way they're now living together, still trying to write musicals, but gabe is insecure about not being able to measure up to how good his collaborator is and guilty about how he's probably the reason they're not as successful as they should be, and the lyricist can feel however much resentment about it or not, or maybe they even like having gabe as an excuse because then it's not their fault they never achieve anything, or maybe they're afraid of success and keep self-sabotaging in increasingly destructive ways, or anything else you might have in mind for the character