Who: Gabriel Allen and Bertram Eden What: Discussing evidence on a trip abroad Where: A charming guest room in France When: 23rd July, 1888 Rating: PG-13 (mention of adult activities)
There was a great deal of sensitive information in this case to be shared with a near-stranger, but Gabriel ('Mr Allen' as an address had gone by the wayside after the first drink the previous evening) had proven himself invaluable, not only with the nuances of the language but in charming the inspectors into giving up their case files at Bertie's request. And in full honesty, Bertie always thought better when speaking aloud to another person, rather than poring silently over his written notes.
He had spread everything they'd accumulated the previous day across the breakfast table, where it was now joined by an overflowing tray of pastries and jam, accompanied by milky cups of coffee in delicate china cups.
"This really is splendid," Bertie remarked, poking at the variety of pastries, hardly any of which looked familiar. "What is this one? Oh, these are sliced down the center, is that for the jam? Or just butter?"
He and Gabriel were both dressed, although this was an informal enough meeting, in their lodging rooms, that Bertie had judged shirtsleeves to be not inappropriate. They had seen a great deal more of one another the evening before, and again this morning.
It had, on the whole, been an entirely satisfactory trip to France.
“There aren’t any hard and fast rules,” Gabriel replied, amused as he looked up from the file he was currently roughly transcribing. “Might as well be daring and try both at once. If you want to go all out, you might even mix more than one jam, quel horreur,” he added with a wink. “I won’t tell a soul.”
“They have better coffee in Italy,” he remarked as he jotted down a few more notes, “but the pastries more than make up for it, I think.”
It’d been somewhat of an adventure to explore the law from the other side of things for a change. There were times where he had to skirt against what was strictly legal in the supernatural realm, and decidedly nowhere close to legal in the mundane one, but he was here in an official capacity, something he found no end of amusing.
That, and the case itself was proving to be interesting enough, and certainly timely -- the recent attempt on Lord Black had served to open a few doors, and the wolf’s cousin had ridden up from Aquitaine to meet them and spend a solid hour berating the Inspectors on their behalf, and then insisted on taking them out to a rather excellent dinner once they’d finished for the evening.
"Two jams," Bertie breathed in mock-horror. "It's the end of civilization as we know it. What next, tomatoes on toast? What are you working on there? Stop working, it's time for breakfast. Have one of these pastry things and tell me what you're up to."
Bertie dropped into a chair and promptly went against his own ruling by pulling the dental measurements from the recent murder victim from their stack of papers and digging around in search of the older set. They had already confirmed it a match, but Bertie wished to copy both down on the same sheet for the case file he was preparing.
"Did you learn to be so persuasive in Italy?" Bertie asked, with a mischievous look over his coyly-held dental records. "You cannot have learned that from the French, or they would have been better able to resist you. Do you speak Italian as well?"
Gabriel chuckled, and tossed him an affectionate look, reaching over the table to ruffle at his hair. “If you insist. E sì, ovviamente, anche se non sono quasi così bene,” he added, reaching for a pastry with a wide grin. “If you love the opera as much as I do, it’s practically a requirement,” he added modestly.
“And there was a statement from one of the hunting party who was describing a glimpse he got of the beast -- from a distance, but I thought the fur color might be helpful for purposes of identification, if anything.” He looked over at Bertie. “Given I’m a mere layperson in all of this, naturally, I defer to your good judgement,” he added, more than a little cheekily as he bit into a chocolate croissant with relish.
"Oh, I am but a humble trainee investigator," Bertie deferred, with a dramatic hand over his heart and a grin that owed as much to the familiar touch as the teasing. "I'm sure such a wise man of the world will have plenty to teach me. That's a good thought, the fur colour. Though I do wish we had any strong suspects to go with all of this evidence we're collecting."
Deciding to take Gabriel's advice, even if it had been in jest, Bertie spread thick stripes of jam down his sectioned pastry in two flavours. "Did you just call me a duck again?" he asked, looking up through his lashes to flirt (he could admit it) now that he held no papers to hide behind. "I've no notion of Italian at all. In how many languages, exactly, could you say that if you wished? All of them used in opera? Is that a common phrase, do you find?"
Gabriel licked some flakes of pastry from his fingers in a way that was decidedly suggestive, and leaned on his hand. “At least four, counting English, mia anatra. The fourth would have to be German, of course. I find their poetry and music delightful. And no, it’s not particularly common -- I do find duckie a rather sweet endearment in English, for instance, but French terms of affection seem to be centered around food decidedly more than the others, I’ve found. And I am rather a fan of confit.”
He grinned. “Well, now, I suppose it all comes back to motive, doesn’t it, as the great Holmes would say. What do you think the motive might be?”
Bertie had been thinking the same, but the question sobered him a bit. "My fear was that the first attack was intended to frame Lord Black for the murder, and that the second might serve a similar purpose. A blow against the alpha of a pack is a blow against the pack itself. But there is no evidence that Mssr. Fournier had any connection to the supernatural at all, much less the alpha of a werewolf pack. Unless it is one which remains in secret, which is entirely possible. I don't know how well werewolves are treated here, or anyone else for that matter."
The matter of what, precisely, Gabriel was had not come up in conversation, nor did Bertie intend to press the issue. The answer was 'not a vampire', nor, Bertie thought, a werewolf, but rather something else mysterious. Bertie considered how to ask his next question without seeming to be asking another, more personal.
"Have you seen any evidence of bias, in your time here, that might cause werewolf packs to remain hidden? I suppose there is always a conflict somewhere," Bertie answered his own question in the same breath, thinking of the fresh truce in England. "But it seems less likely, now, that the intention of the first attack was to remove Lord Black from his position. He feared..."
Bertie broke off, sensing he was trespassing too close to private confidences with any mention of the former, now deceased, Lord Black.
"I beg your pardon," Bertie said after a moment of serious thought. "I'm chasing too many ducks of my own, I fear, in all different directions. Was it a territory dispute? Mssr. Fournier was French, and from the north; surely he had not transgressed in the same way as an Englishman on holiday. And I cannot see how Lady Stanbury should fit into this, if the cases are indeed related. Why turn her? Was that the intention? Was it an error, her presence there? Or was she not meant to live? Surely any werewolf would have caught her scent long before any attack took place, and she could not have put up such a great fight that a wolf could not have finished her off."
Bertie winced, thinking of Lady Stanbury the night Lord Black had been attacked. "I'm sorry again," he sighed. "That was callous of me. I get carried away, I'm afraid, and forget my manners." Seeking to prevent another tactless statement, Bertie chose to cram a goodly portion of his pastry into his mouth instead. Whether the jam was intended or no, it was delicious. He made a pleased sound in Gabriel’s direction.
“Hm,” Gabriel replied, thoughtfully brushing some crumbs off of the file he’d been reading. “It seems to me the only two things connecting the cases are the fact that two gentlemen were killed by the same wolf. Perhaps there’s too much possible motive floating around to do much good at all, and you won’t know the full of it until he’s apprehended.” He looked over at Bertie and shrugged. “And please, meine Ente, don’t worry about censoring yourself. The family isn’t present, and it’s a valid point. Besides,” he continued, with a slight raise of his eyebrow and a quirk of his lips, “we’re rather beyond manners, I ought to hope.”
He shook his head and shrugged. “As far as your query about the werewolves of France, I must admit, except for when it comes to my own personal matters, I haven’t followed recent politics on the Continent as closely as I might, and heaven knows, wolf politics can be a tangle of territories and posturing under the best of times.” He frowned. “...What with the expulsion of the Huguenots -- nasty business, that was -- and God knows how many empires and revolutions shaking things up these last few centuries, I could see how there’d be some in the supernatural community who’d want to keep their heads down, and who’d have good reason to do so, but I’m not aware of any systematic bias at the species level -- I’m vaguely aware that there has tended to be wolves on either side of most conflicts here. Then again, I could be utterly naive -- it’s quite possible there are tensions I simply am not made privy to.”
He looked over at Bertie, and laughed a little. “Hang on, you’ve a spot of jam…” he said, leaning over to brush it off Bertie’s cheek with a swipe of his thumb and licking the smear off the thumb with a flourish. “The orange and blackberry are quite good together,” he added, smiling, before taking advantage of the temporary closeness to lean over and kiss him lightly. “I approve of the combination entirely,” he added with a grin before settling back in his chair.
Bertie blinked, surprised and pleased, a smile growing as he resisted the urge to reach for the jam pot and smear blackberries across his mouth. He wanted to ask what Gabriel had called him just then, but he still had no idea of the Italian, and in some ways it more tantalizing to not know, and just let himself feel warmed by the affection.
"You make a very unusual vicar," was what he ended up saying, ducking his head on a grin as he tried to bring his focus back to the notes surrounding him. After a moment, he felt clear-headed enough to say, "I wonder if it is the reverse of what concerned Lord Black. If the first attack had nothing to do with the Stanburys or the Black Park pack, but rather was an accident, a crime of convenience and mistaken identity, and we have stumbled into it thinking this second is something to do with the English when it really isn't at all."
Waiting to apprehend a culprit was not Bertie's favoured method of investigation, but even he had to admit that they had very little to go on. Lord Black's cousin had been unable to give them any insight, although he had been extremely helpful in convincing the French investigators to cooperate. If there were a rogue wolf or a territorial pack at work, surely he would have known of it. He said as much to Gabriel, and then sifted through papers haphazardly for a moment before confessing, "I fear I have very little to bring back to Lord Black, except more uncertainty. And if his lordship's life is in danger, I cannot simply wait and hope that we apprehend the murderer before he strikes again."
Not when it was the alpha of the pack. Bertie would search out every wolf in France before he gave up looking for the assailant.
“I’m quite good at keeping confidences,” Gabriel replied, laughing, “but that’s where the similarities end, I’m afraid. And Bertie,” he said, tapping his pencil on the table, “I’m sure he’s not expecting you to single-handedly solve the case in one visit to France. I suspect one reason the Inspectors were so hesitant to turn over what they had was because they had so little -- it’s certainly no fault of yours.”
He’d known about the recent attempt on Lord Black, of course -- it was all anyone could talk about in certain circles -- but Bertie’s concern seemed distinctly more personal.
“You know him well, then?” He asked, before giving Bertie an easy out in case it hit a little too close to home. “What sort of wolf is he? I admit, other than occasional polite run-ins at parties, I haven’t had much opportunity to get to know him. Nasty business, though -- I was sorry to hear he’d been hurt.”
Bertie didn't believe that Lord Black expected that at all. He was rather certain, in fact, that Lord Black expected him to fail, but since Bertie had diverted him from speaking with a senior investigator, Lord Black had no other choice but to hope he'd be proven wrong.
Bertie tried not to be too crushed by the knowledge that any such hope had been misplaced.
He was aware he'd been silent too long, and cleared his throat. "No, not well." He pushed some of the papers on the table listlessly with a finger before telling himself to stop dwelling in misery and answer the second question. "He's a good leader. Noble, attentive, astute. He pays attention to his people and understands how to govern them." The memory of Lord Black sighing come here, then, with an outstretched hand made a small lump rise in Bertie's throat. "I’ve only ever seen him act fairly, and he has the trust of his pack. He has earned it."
Bertie sighed and pushed away the remains of his breakfast. "If he hadn't, he would not be alpha."
Ah. So it was personal, then.
Bertie’s face wrote volumes -- the young man was remarkably expressive. Gabriel raised an eyebrow, reshuffling his own papers.
“He sounds like he inspires great loyalty,” he said, “and that he has the capacity to be understanding of the limitations that you are working under,” he added.
“Come, now.” He took took a sip of his coffee, tilting his head to study his passionate young friend. “You've established definitively that the Stanbury and Fournier cases are linked, have a description of the perpetrator in wolf form, and successfully liaised with your French counterparts and Lord Black’s cousins for future. And you're going to be able to eliminate the rogue wolf theory once we check the files this afternoon. I'd call that good work that can be built on, and only Mr Holmes solves his cases so annoyingly quickly.”
Bertie nodded, unconvinced but making an effort, since he knew Gabriel was trying to cheer him. "You're right, of course. I'm afraid I haven't his intellect, though I wish I did. I only hope we see it solved before any more harm comes to Lord Black."
He fidgeted for a moment, recalling what Gabriel had said about keeping secrets, and confided, "When I said that I stood to gain from doing well on this case, I did not mean materially. Lord Black's pack means a great deal to me, and I hope to make them think well of me. I find them...very admirable."
If he’d known better how Bertie would react, Gabriel would’ve taken the opportunity to tease a little, because it was as plain as the nose on Bertie’s face. As it was, he leaned sideways in his chair and gave him a light kiss on the cheek to assure him a little, and thank him for his confidence, and reached across the table to give his hand a pat.
“I can see that,” he said, evenly, taking a sip of his coffee. “It must be difficult to not get frustrated, when a case impacts people you admire and care for, especially if one is in immediate danger. And I can find no fault with wanting to have the good opinion of a good man,” he added. “Or a good pack, for that matter.”
From nearly anyone else, that would have passed without comment. From a gentleman with whom Bertie had shared intimate company while abroad in France, it made him practically leap, stammering, to correct the wrong impression he was sure he'd just given.
"Not the man!" Bertie squeaked, waving his hands in the air until he realized the danger presented by his quite-full cup of coffee. "Not like that. I mean, ah, as the alpha, yes, but not..." Not like you was not entirely the correct answer. "That is, my affections are not...it is not a personal matter. His esteem."
That was also badly put, and almost entirely untrue, but Bertie could not think of how to classify his admiration in a way that did not mislead his audience. He had done a poor job of it already.
“Bertie,” Gabriel replied gently, recognizing that panicked look all too well, “Of course that’s what you meant. Admiration, respect, esteem -- I didn’t take it any other way. Truly. It really was awful, what happened -- and if you feel additional pressure to have a good showing because of your concern on behalf of the pack, a concern I find laudable, well.” He took another sip of his coffee. “That makes this case have higher stakes for you, no doubt -- but I can understand your desire to do well by them.”
He looked over at him, tilting his head. “I fear I may be in danger of overstepping,” he added, “but I must say, I am curious about what brought a human like you to work for the Night Watch. You’re a particularly rare breed of duck,” he said, smiling a little, “and if it is a bit too much, feel free to maintain your aura of mystery and intrigue -- I’ll make do by inventing a wild story that involves your towering abilities of deduction.”
"Ah. Yes, well." Already flustered from his accidental impinging upon Lord Black's reputation, Bertie was not at all prepared to address that question, although he supposed he really should have seen it coming. It wasn't something he shared often, and he played for time by stuffing the last of the pastry into his mouth and hoping he'd got the orange marmalade somewhere that Gabriel would be tempted to kiss it off.
"I see and hear things others do not," he temporized. "Not, unfortunately, by deduction alone. The Night Watch found me as I was going around sharing fantastic tales of men who turned into wolves and vampires in government, and offered me a position. I didn't quite realize it was all meant to be secret, you see," Bertie explained sheepishly. "I mean, clearly it had been kept very quiet, but I'd no understanding of why. I don't go around telling those stories anymore," he assured Gabriel. "And I hardly did before, and no one believed me, I'm sure, even when they listened. That's what you get for being a poet, I suppose. A reputation for the fanciful."
Bertie thought of the confusion he'd been met with at the hospital, what are you doing here, no one's died, and wiped his fingers clean on his napkin with a preoccupied air. "I am...a rarer bird than you might think. I don't believe, now that they have me, that they know quite what to do with me. I spend a lot of time filing reports. And making tea."
He sighed, and turned his attention outward again, to Gabriel. "I make a poor conversational partner to have the discussion be all about me. I find you much more interesting. Will you tell me more about yourself? Whatever you're comfortable with," Bertie hastened to add. "I don't...ah, I haven't heard or seen anything regarding you, in case you were wondering. I don't believe it's likely."
“Ah, mon canard,” Gabriel replied with a grin, “rare birds can be quite beautiful -- even though it is a pity when others don’t know quite how one might best make use of their gifts. It’s a lack of imagination on their part, I’m sure. At least you don’t have to keep your nature or your knowledge entirely to yourself -- that would be a pity indeed.”
He looked over at Bertie, raising a bit of an eyebrow at his last. He was a trainee investigator for the Night Watch -- he had no doubt the young man could make inquiries, and was half-expecting he had in anticipation of a trip taken abroad. But he’d been quite disclosing, so it was only fair Gabriel toss him a bit of a bone. “There honestly isn’t much to it,” he said with a small wave of his hand. “I’m a demon -- I suppose you most likely haven’t seen much of my folk as part of your work -- we’re not terribly numerous, nor are we the sort to pick fights as a general rule.” He smiled and shrugged.
He spoke rather lightly, but he was aware that there were certain… reputations that went hand in hand with his species. There was a part of him who wished he’d had a little more chance to play coy about it, but he’d really opened the door to it, and he could hardly fault Bertie for being curious.
"Oh, no," Bertie said, dismayed, and waving his hands around a little as if he could take back hearing the words. "I didn't mean...I phrased that badly, I was trying so hard not to ask because I didn't want you to feel that you must, and here I boxed you into it regardless."
He'd wanted almost at once to ask, judging by the hint of melancholy in Gabriel's voice, if Gabriel was someone who had to keep his nature and knowledge entirely to himself. Bertie's impulse was to drop the subject, but now that Gabriel had volunteered information, perhaps he was, in his way, asking to share more of his secrets with someone?
"A demon, really," Bertie rallied inanely while he decided whether or not to pursue the subject, and then as so often happened, he continued talking while his mind was occupied with something else entirely, until both halves came together to collide into a disjointed whole. "Do you mean...I have heard stories, but...I didn't think...and, well...but you..."
There was no way in which Bertie could be handling this worse, he decided on reflection. His hands were even making meaningful gestures with a pastry and a butter knife, which only the most generous interpretation would admit held a comparison to certain acts which they had enjoyed last night. Bertie hastily set down his illustrative tools.
He could think of no graceful way out but to lunge across the table and press his mouth to Gabriel's in a firm kiss, both hands - including unfortunately the one which had been holding the greasy pastry, oh bother - fisted tightly into the fabric covering Gabriel's (rather magnificent) chest. Then he broke away and just stared, wide-eyed, before blurting the first thing that came into his head.
"I see ghosts! And, ah, talk to them. Quite a lot, actually. None in here right now, everyone always wants to know that, nor in the bedroom...I wouldn't have been able to...well, maybe with you I would," Bertie contradicted himself, and was promptly seized with the impulse to bang his head upon the table or shut himself up by way of Gabriel's lovely mouth. He chose the second option, gradually relaxing a tiny bit when Gabriel did not dump him onto the floor, and by the time they broke apart this time he was even smiling a little.
"That truly wasn't what I meant, though," he confessed quietly. "I'm sorry for asking. I meant, more, that I wanted to know about you...what you enjoy, your life, if you have any hobbies besides the opera. Not...not what you are. I'd rather know who."
That being said, Bertie cleared his throat and repeated with irresistible curiosity, "A demon, really?"
“Do you always bridge spectacularly awkward pauses with kisses?” Gabriel asked, an amused half-grin on his face as he pulled Bertie a bit closer. “It is an unusual rhetorical device,” he added, as he reached up to brush a hand through Bertie’s hair, “quite bold,” he said, the grin blooming fully as he tilted his chin a little in a tease.
He found Bertie’s query about hobbies deeply charming, and he shook his head slightly. “You might have already gathered that I’m a lover of poetry, and I enjoy food far more than I ought, given my nature,” he said, with a laugh. “I’m a fair cook, believe it or not, although I’m supposed to let servants do that sort of work. I love horse-riding, but despise hunting, and while I am supposed to be a proper gentleman when I’m out in public, and live at my leisure, I have a secret vice for business and investing, and indulge in it often.” He laughed, leaning over to kiss him once more, a thank-you for having the wherewithal to ask.
“And yes, really,” he added with a smirk.
"No, it's a new thing I'm trying," Bertie said after a beat. "The kissing. What do you think?" That could only tide him over for so long before he said in amazement, "You really are a most unusual vicar."
Gabriel had already alluded to the most pertinent of Bertie's questions, with his remark on cooking and his nature, but that didn't mean Bertie didn't have a dozen more to follow. "I'd thought...I don't know why, of course...but then I suppose you don't..."
In between those sentence fragments Bertie's thoughts bounced in all directions. He didn't know why he'd assumed demons could only be women. Those were the only ones joked about by the Night Watch staff, but it made perfect sense that there would be men as well. Surely those...lay on women, as the stories said. If that was indeed how demons gained sustenance, which Gabriel's comment seemed to support, although that might be an exaggeration or misunderstanding. Why, Gabriel had been to bed with Bertie just last night...
His eyes widened. "But we...you didn't...with me?" He pointed to his own chest, dazed at the implication. "Should I go to church now? Can I go to church?" That last was asked with some small amount of alarm, as a lifetime of avoiding churches would be inconvenient to say the least. If anything guaranteed a damned soul, however, Bertie was fairly certain that inverted buggery at the (very skillful) hands of a demon would be it.
It wasn't as though Bertie were trying very hard to save himself, either. Since learning this revelation, he'd already given and returned at least three kisses, he was half-into Gabriel's lap, and his hands had settled comfortably on Gabriel's shoulders. He was not exactly the picture of 'get behind me, Satan'.
"I'm sorry," Bertie apologized. "I do keep saying I won't ask."
“Bertie, dear,” Gabriel looked up, trying his very best not to smile at his inquiries and failing miserably, “if you think you cannot go to church any more, I’m glad you did ask. Mercy, that’d be all kinds of awkward would it be the case. I’m a frightfully poor attendant myself, but believe me, when I go, there are no ominous rumblings of thunder.” He grinned. “I do believe the term was invented by Christians, who didn’t approve of sex for pleasure, but I don’t grow horns and liaise with Beelzebub in the graveyard to dance about -- it simply means that I feed from energy given by the pleasure of willing partners, very much enjoy giving them that pleasure, and have the gift of a great deal of charm and a longer life than most, God willing.”
He wanted to brush a hand through Bertie’s hair again, but held back, knowing he might be a touch skittish. He’d assumed the man knew enough from working at the Night Watch, but he’d also spoken true -- his sort weren’t as typical an encounter as vampires or werewolves, and cut a much lower profile as a general rule. “Sex and sexual pleasure has a power to it -- it’s an electricity of sorts -- and I feed by touch -- but I have enough partners to keep me more than satisfied, and only take a little here and there. You’re delicious, of course, but you’re a human, so I didn’t take much -- you don’t have as much to spare, and I’d eaten quite well before we left.”
"Oh, I see." Bertie found himself strangely disappointed by that news. Not that he wished to be eternally marked as a demonic conquest or swooning like a debauched maiden, but it seemed - apart from being, as Gabriel had said, a pleasurable experience all around - an unremarkable event. He'd thought he should have noticed.
"I'm sorry for not being a more filling meal," Bertie replied, frowning a little. "And rather sorry I missed it. Though I am glad that you are not too hungry, of course."
Now that he was aware, he had even more questions, and wanted keenly to measure the experience, to mark the results of this or that by comparison until he had a fuller understanding of the process. He didn't know whether saying as much would be an insult to Gabriel or not.
Deciding to risk it, as that was infinitely preferable to remaining silent, Bertie gave a hopeful look through his lashes and asked, "I don't suppose you would want to go again, would you, so that I can pay better attention?" He sat up a little straighter, gaining enthusiasm. "We don't have the strictest schedule to keep, after all, and you can tell me more of poetry and cooking. I do enjoy your discourse on French cuisine and meat sauces. I don't know how well I would pay heed to talk of investments and business, with you being as distracting as you are, but I believe I could manage a vocal appreciation of duck sauce."
This time he did reach for Bertie, pulling him closer and kissing him lightly, and laughing a little as he did so.
“I do believe we might be able to carve out an hour before we’re due at the station,” he said, grinning, a hand brushing through Bertie’s hair lightly. “And I’m not judging your fitness as a partner on the merits of your energy, nor just looking for a meal,” he clarified -- “not only that. Your energies are no fault of your own, and I like this, and you, as you are. An amuse-bouche does have its joys,” he added, his other hand resting on Bertie’s hip.
“How does it go?” He murmured, “For the sword outwears its sheath, and the soul wears out the breast, and the hearth must pause to breathe, and love itself have rest,” he said, pulling Bertie down for a longer kiss. “But not just yet,” he added, with a distinctly wicked grin. “We can still go a-roving for a while longer with no harm done. You’ll have plenty of energy for this afternoon’s work, I promise you that.”
Gabriel was not to know, of course, but the employment of Lord Byron during intimate moments was something against which Bertie had little defense. He melted rather thoroughly into the embrace, heartbeat speeding in pleasure, afternoon work temporarily set aside in his mind.
"I don't believe I've been called a mouth-amuser before," Bertie noted, unable to help making a note for the possibilities of future verse. "I shall have to dedicate myself to living up to the title. For the next hour at least, so long as you remain a willing subject."
Bertie slid back to catch Gabriel's hands in his, presuming the pastries would be fine for a brief delay in their consumption. Snatches of verse, Byron's and others, echoed in his mind now that Gabriel had given them voice. Burns, for some reason, was the loudest, but Bertie had no doubt he could come up with something French to suit their surroundings.
"What do you say to a poetry challenge?" Bertie teased, beginning to pull Gabriel toward the bedroom. "Whomever finds their mouth unoccupied shall have the task of sharing some favourite verse, until they should stumble, at which point the other shall proceed." He laid a kiss along the line of Gabriel's jaw, and rubbed his cheek there from long habit before he could think to stop the motion. Eyes dancing when he looked up, Bertie offered, "I shall trade you recitations."
Gabriel laughed, looking down at him, amused. “Oh, well done, you,” he said, fondly. “I’d enjoy that to no end. You first, then,” he added, his fingers playfully plucking at the buttons on Bertie’s shirt as he leaned down to return the kiss in kind, halfway to the bed already.