InsaneJournal

“--there, end of the alley!”

A sharp jerk to his shoulder, and Gideon turned his head just in time to catch the trail of a jacket disappearing around the corner. He immediately took off running after him -- his long legs eating up the distance, leaving his older, shorter partner huffing behind and grumbling about impulsive young pups with boundless energy -- grumble all you want, old man, so long as we get our man.

Rounding the corner out of the alley, Gideon came upon a busy scene of nightlife activity. Several muggle pubs and clubs all in a row, spilling forth its stumbling, inebriated crowds onto the pavement and street. He scanned the scantily-clad throngs, trying to find their suspect and...there, their man disappeared through the side door to one of the brightly lit venues.

If he had paused to consider where he was going, if he had paid more attention to his surroundings, Gideon might have better noticed the club’s clientele and its atmosphere of certain expectations. As it was, he was more intent on capture of a different kind as he bounded past the door’s guard, barrelled right into the club, and stopped short.

Loud, thumping bass beats shook his very bones. The entire club was awash and dripping in brightly coloured hues. Bodies writhed on the dance floor. Nearly all of the club’s participants were men who seemed to have little qualms with that fact, given the simulated sexual acts he was witnessing that were, he supposed, substitutions for dancing.

Oh.

“Oi, there! Tall, dark and utterly clueless …” From the shadow near some wall came a voice. It was a baritone, coloured with some County Antrim lilt, and whose face emerged a moment later. There was little remarkable about either. Only the eyes, pale and large, stood out in the pale colourless face. But there was just enough tweed and a decided lack of leather straps and Teddy Boy hullabaloo to make his presence almost impervious to observability.

If only -- “Step back, come here.”

It was almost a relief to be pulled out of his stupification. As alert as a dog, Gideon turn his head to that voice, body already half turned to obey -- anything to remove himself from acts he was witnessing. Already his cheeks burned with embarrassment.

The one who had called out to him, and it was already Gideon’s first thought to make sure -- no, not his suspect -- was most definitely muggle, and positively conservative in comparison to the rest of the club. It was that air of seeming normalcy which put him more at ease -- a conspirator in the midst of this strange world. “Y-yes. Hullo. I’m -- did you, uh, there was man who’s come through here not more than a minute ago. Did you happen to see where he went?”

“You know, they’re not all so --” And here, the young man cocked his jaw and gave a momentary pause as if locked in thought. “ -- obvious as you are. See, most folks here don’t want to be seen. Despite the evidence to the contrary.” It was in him to be kind, particularly to a little lamb whose wayward shepherd had flown the coop. He decided to play along.

“All right, lamb. What’s he look like?” He took a sip from his drink, a stiff amber liquid: “What’s this fellow done? He owe you money?”

“I--excuse me?” Gideon blinked, finally pulling his scattered, stunned thoughts into some semblance of linear thinking. He self-consciously glanced down at himself -- obvious. Jeans, button down, leather jacket: these were his most convincing muggle clothes -- he’d been top of his class at muggle camouflage. Should he have worn tweed…? But no, certainly not, if the rest of the clothing assembled were any indication. His gaze was drawn back to the dancefloor, and just as quickly he averted them, flush renewed. “No. Not money, he’s…” a dark wizard. Which probably would not be the best nor the most believable explanation. “A suspect. In a case. You...I’m sorry, this isn’t quite what I was expecting.”

“Sure he is, lamb. What’s the case? Cause I saw a blonde go that way --” he hooked his thumb over his shoulder, down a set of stairs which would lead to the club’s lower levels. “And I saw a brunette go that way --” thumb in the opposite direction this time. But his shoulders rose. “Can’t believe ‘this suspect’ would just leave you … when this is quite obviously your first time.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You want a drink? I’ll get you one.”

“Obvious? How -- first time for what?” Gideon asked in spite of himself. He had already craned his head in the directions the man had indicated, the stairs, the dark long hallway at the back. There were so many other men crowding the room, he could hardly get a clear visual of the suspect but -- they were at the bar. The barkeep seemed to be of the shirt-optional variety. Gideon found himself staring at the metal piercings on his chest.

“The ignorant trick --” he put his drink down and tapped the bar twice, eliciting a nod from said nearly naked barkeep. “Lamb.” But when he turned back round, he had a matching drink in his hand and gave the rim a clink with his own. “You don’t really have to in here. You see, nobody wants to be known. You’ll get a different name every time. But the trick is, to just let it all flow through you.”

Gideon’s fingers closed around the circumference of the glass reflexively. It occurred to him there and then (belatedly -- when had he lost his wits so dramatically?) that the other man did not fully believe his story and that he wanted to -- his eyes widened. “No. No that’s not -- I’m really very sorry, but you’re quite mistaken. I don’t, I didn’t come here with the intention to…” He gestured obscurely to the room, already shying away from the words. “I’m not...this.”

“You’re not … this. You’re not …” and he rolled his wrist, giving it a limp shake. Then, after a laugh, he took a sip of his drink. “You’re not gay. Sure, lamb. Well, here’s the secret? We’re all a little everything.”

And removing a bic pen from his breast pocket, he pointed to Gideon’s wrist. “Give me that, won’t you?”

Gideon glanced down at his wrist, alarmed, already curling the referred to limb closer to his body as if the other man had suggested he was going to cut it off and eat it. “Why?”

A roll of the eyes as the boy grasped his wrist anyway, and pulled the pale underside of his arm to the light. Licking the tip of the ball point, he wrote several numbers in succession and tucked the pen behind Gideon’s ear. “Take a deep breath, lamb. It’s only my address.”

Then -- “Your perp just came out of the basement, like a little dove, and is on his way out the front door.”

The difference in stature and reach, the force with which his arm was claimed, caused Gideon to ungainly stumble closer, catching an inadvertent breath of light cologne, sweat, cotton. The grip around his hand, sharp, piercing and warm, centred his shattered focus next, though he didn’t even glance down to see what the other man was writing. It was his profile that engulfed Gideon’s attention, the cut of lashes, the glimpse of blue eyes. As meek as a schooled child, he remained as the pen pressed into his skin, and for many more moments after until the other man’s words fully penetrated.

“--bloody hell.” Gideon half turned, already set to take off again, the glimpse of jacket, yes, it was him, it was-- he turned back to the other man, unsure of what to say for the way his mouth opened and closed until, “Who are you?”

The boy, whose stupidly long lashes brushed up his cheeks, as he blinked and offered Gideon a brief beat of a smile, let his shoulders rise. “I told you none of us have names here, lamb. Cause it’s safe when we don’t …”

Then -- “But I’m Colin.”

“Gideon. I’m Gideon,” he said guilelessly, and it was only after a few moments more when he seemed to remember himself and his original purpose. “And I’ve got to--go. That man is...right. Going.” His running away was, he told himself, out of necessity of the chase after their suspect and not his own silly fear.