The little hiccup of laughter that bubbled out of him almost took Gabe by surprise. But it felt good. As good as William's reassuring warmth next to him. Almost as good as the thought that they could - they would - do just as William said. "Oh baby," Gabe said, with a little sidelong glance and smile, "talk dirty to me."
But he was in action again, hands back to certain as he laid out a testing dish, carefully decanted a few drops of the stripped-back, primed-up virus into it, like a wash of star-dusted dusk. There was a drop of William's blood still in the syringe, and Gabe added his own demands to those of gravity to coax it out. It hung for a moment before dropping unpretentiously into the dish.
Tendrils of blood curled into the liquid, and then it swirled in completely as Gabe gave the dish a less-than-precise jiggle. The liquid darkened to a delicate shade of violet, the golden glints standing out even more starkly for a moment.
And then they vanished.
Gabe blinked. Tilted the dish. Set it down again. "Holy shit," he said. "It fucking worked."