angelic_gabe (angelic_gabe) wrote in shadowlands_ic, @ 2017-08-31 08:13:00 |
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Entry tags: | bertie eden, gabriel allen |
Who: Bertie and Gabriel
What: Gabriel delivers Apology Scotch. And an apology. The two talk about Bertie's troubles. After this.
Where: Bertie's flat
When: 24 August, 1888 [slight backdate]
Rating: PG; suggestiveness, bawdy poetry
Gabriel knocked on Bertie’s door, an apologetic expression on his face, and a rather nice bottle of “I’m sorry” Scotch in his hand.
He wasn’t quite sure flowers were appropriate, given the circumstances, but he figured at least a token gesture would be useful.
Bertie was… well, to call him a complication was a disservice, but he had a tendency to crop up in no end of inconvenient places, a hazard of his line of work and nature, no doubt, and while it could’ve been a great deal worse, he knew enough of Bertie to know he tended to be a passionate sort, and was most likely in need of soothing.
If he’d let him through the door in the first place, that was.
His knowledge of Leah’s double life needed managing regardless, and Gabriel liked Bertie -- he didn’t want to leave feathers ruffled if he could help it. And it was as good a time to talk as any -- especially if he was going to continue to hold what appeared to be a certain vested interest in the wellbeing of Gabriel’s employees and daughter.
It was pointless to immediately wonder if a knock on his door might be Mal, but that didn't stop Bertie's mind from doing so. Since they'd reconnected, however awkwardly and unhappily, there was a slim chance it could be. Bertie ran a hand through hopelessly-disheveled hair, checked to be sure he was decent by minimum standards - shirtsleeves, waistcoat, and necktie, his coat left off in deference to the warm weather - and pulled open the door.
When he saw who it truly was, he wasn't sure whether he was relieved, disappointed, or a mix of both. At the moment, his confusion of emotions over Gabriel wasn't much better than his feelings about Mal. Bertie had determinedly avoided him for the remainder of the evening at the Sanderson Summer Fete, though for all he knew, Gabriel might have been doing the same. Their parting there had been, to put it kindly, uncomfortable.
"Hello," Bertie said after he'd grappled with his feelings over this new development. It was an improvement over oh, which he expected could have been misconstrued. There was another beat before Bertie said, "Come in," standing aside to hold open the door. It seemed unlikely that Gabriel meant to deliver a message at the door and then go on his way. There weren't many messages Bertie could think of, given the recent complications in their relationship, that would have been appropriate to deliver in a doorway.
“Thank you,” Gabriel replied as he entered. Bertie’s face, as per usual, read like a rather complicated epic poem, and he knew his welcome wasn’t guaranteed, but he’d gotten in the door, which was something.
Bertie looked a little worn around the edges and rumpled, and his rooms likewise had seen far better days -- it looked as though it’d been snowing paper, and that the housekeeper had been keeping her distance, and he tipped his head Bertie’s way as he passed over the Scotch.
“I don’t mean to intrude,” he said, carefully. “Is this a bad time? I thought… well. I thought it’d be best to clear the air a touch. But if I’d be adding complications instead, I can leave this and save it for another day.”
"No, no, come in," Bertie repeated, though Gabriel already had, and Bertie had closed the door behind him. He didn't know that things could become more any more complicated, at this point, than they already were. Bertie made a halfhearted attempt to clear several of the chairs, moving notes, drawings, and inspired but unfinished fits of verse onto side tables and stacks of books.
He did so with the Scotch bottle in hand, and when he'd finished, he looked at it, and then at Gabriel. "You didn't have to," he said, and then gestured in the direction of the small cupboard where the glasses were kept. "Shall I open it? Would you like some now?"
A drink perhaps wouldn't go amiss. Heaven knew Bertie wasn't getting all that far on a clear head.
“Oh, I’d beg to differ on that count,” Gabriel replied, quietly. “And I certainly wouldn’t turn it down,” he added with a small smile. “It is rather nice Scotch, if I do say so, but then again I am no doubt a little biased.”
“It was probably a disservice,” he allowed, sitting back in his chair, “to not tell you of Leah the night we both turned up at Miss Lydia’s. I suppose I was still hoping…” he frowned, and shrugged a little. “I was hoping that world and the world of the Sandersons would keep their distance at least a little while longer, but I should’ve known better, and not caught you off guard.”
He looked up at Bertie. “Secrets are sometimes a matter of survival, Mr Eden, and while it might be a bad habit, I am quite used to keeping mine and my family’s for as long as I can manage, from everyone, as a general rule.”
For all that Bertie had intended to retreat to the more formal 'Mr Allen' himself, hearing himself addressed in kind was rather like a splash of cold water. He understood the reason, however, as he understood what had happened at the Fete. They were discussing something serious here, with a great deal at stake for Gabriel and his...his companion.
That didn't make Bertie like it any better.
"I understand. You had no reason to tell me, and every reason to keep it quiet." Rationally, Bertie agreed with every word. And it wasn't as though he hadn't kept things of his own quiet, like his detached relationship with the Black Park pack, even if Gabriel might be able to guess at them. Gabriel was acting in the best interests of a young lady whose good name and reputation depended upon him, and really, Bertie was hardly anyone to him, only a sometime-lover whose acquaintance he had only just made recently. It wasn't any great betrayal.
It was only that he had felt so stingingly, thoroughly humiliated, and would never have thought to look to Gabriel as a source of such emotion. He didn't know how to recover face that had been so badly lost.
Bertie poured two glasses of Scotch, set the bottle down on the counter, and brought the glasses over to offer one to Gabriel. He tried not to ask, but the question gnawed at him, pressing against the backs of his teeth until he had to let it come bursting out.
"What is she to you, truly? Are you really her father?"
Gabriel took the proffered glass, and set it on the arm of the chair.
“She is,” he said, simply. “She’s my youngest, and the heart of my heart. I don’t…” he frowned a little, and took a sip of his drink. “I don’t expect you to understand fully, but she’s… she’s a creature like myself, with all my needs, none of the access, and all the endless pressure young women face to keep up their reputations.” He looked over at Bertie, evenly. “It’s possibly the most terrifying thing in the world, to be a parent. To want the best for your child, to fear for their future, to want to provide, to protect them more than anything. I can’t imagine what you must think of me,” he said, a little hesitantly, “but I am trying to do my best by her, however unconventional it may seem.”
He sighed, and ran his hand through his hair, looking down at the glass. “And in the spirit of transparency, I was there because I own the damn place, and was checking up on things. It’s not…” he frowned. “I realize that doesn’t necessarily put me in a better light, but there it is. I hope you might see why I’d want to keep quiet about it.”
“...For the record,” he added, looking back up at Bertie, “as awkward as it must’ve been for you, I am rather glad you stumbled across it, instead of someone else.”
Bertie nodded, absorbing that. It was quite a lot to take in, and he decided he ought to take a seat, and avail himself of that drink. A woman, in that same indelicate position in which Gabriel found himself, and forced to rely on strangers and an unsavory business, however comfortable her father might attempt to make it for her. Bertie did not like to think of such a fate, even if it were in the Allens' nature to accept it.
"We did not...I never dallied with her," Bertie said uncomfortably, lest Gabriel have made such an assumption. After a moment, however, he wondered if that might not have been the wrong choice, if Miss Allen really were in need. It went against nearly everything Bertie had been brought up to think about young ladies, but he'd also spent his share of time in brothels, and been seduced by a well-placed woman whose marriage afforded her some liberty with younger lovers. He understood that women could have the same desires as men, without the freedom to act on them.
It helped that he'd known her as Miss Vicky, first. Bertie suspected he would be having more difficulty in reconciling Miss Vicky if she had been Miss Allen and his peer, before he'd known of her other life.
Bertie looked away, because he could not imagine saying such things as he was about to directly to the face of a young woman's father, much less one who was also his lover. "If there is anything...if I may ever offer her some respite," Bertie said awkwardly, his eyes fixed on the sketch of a cube covered with vague markings, "I hope...will you tell her that she may call on me, if she has need? I am aware that such an offer may strain our friendship past bearing, but if it may provide her some aid...as you say, she has fewer choices, and more need."
Bertie was looking at the ceiling by the end of his speech, colour staining his cheeks and throat, embarrassment tightening his voice. Gabriel might strike him for such an insult, and be well within his rights to do so. But hearing and sympathizing with Miss Allen's plight, Bertie thought it might be more ungentlemanly not to make the offer.
It was no end of awkward, but kindly enough meant -- which encapsulated Bertie rather well. Gabriel had been bracing a little, concerned he’d have to undergo even greater degrees of damage control -- but this was at least an attempt at empathy, and he looked over at Bertie, who was sweetly blushing, and couldn’t help but smile.
“I do believe that study of poetry has done you more good than not,” he said, quietly. “You are an uncommonly thoughtful sort, and it’s to your credit.”
His smile grew a little, and he shrugged. “She tends to get more than a little annoyed at the thought of associating with my former or current lovers, and it can get a touch… complicated. I’ll pass along your well-wishes, of course, but the ball would be in her court, and should she choose not to pick it up, please don’t take it personally.” He laughed a little. “If she continues to be put out at the thought, I suspect we shall have to carve out territory sooner or later.”
He reached for Bertie’s shoulder and clasped it briefly. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for being so gracious when we both asked quite a bit of you the other day, and for your willingness to accept us as we are.”
Bertie shrugged, uncomfortable still, and subtly withdrew his arm. His emotions were still at odds with his reason, and Gabriel's relationship with Miss Allen had only been a portion of his unhappiness.
"It wasn't that," he said--although it had been, in part. Bertie chewed on his lip for a moment before admitting, "I felt a child with you, that night. That you looked on me the same way you did your daughter, with the fondness that someone who's grown mature has for the very young. I knew you were older than I, but I never felt anything other than your equal. And Miss Allen knew, if not how I felt about you, then our probable relationship to one another. I've found, recently," Bertie finished, more subdued, "that I am tired of being looked at with indulgence, as if I must be suffered until I can reach a more respectable age."
It wasn't Gabriel he was speaking of now, which made it perhaps unfair for him to say as much. But Bertie had undergone a trying week all around, and his nerves were strained. The memory of Gabriel clapping him on the shoulder and laughing with his parents at the eccentricities of their children put fresh heat in Bertie's cheeks, and he turned away again, fumbling for a drink of his Scotch.
Gabriel tipped his head in sudden acknowledgement, and noted the slight stiffness about the shoulders, and the use of past tense. “Ah,” he said, quietly. “I am sorry for that,” he added, “even if it was a part I had to play. I can see how my keeping things from you would only compound the feeling.”
He frowned a little. “I have enjoyed our time together, mon canard,” he said, “and I know you’re more than a little bruised, and have every right to be, but know that I’m here today because I consider you to be a friend whom I’ve wronged and felt the need to make amends to, because I respect you.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And I’ll have you know,” he added, carefully, “that while I may be a great many things, I don’t make a habit of bedding people whom I think of as children.”
Bertie flushed and looked down, ashamed at himself. "No, of course not. I shouldn't have...I'm sorry. That was unworthy of you."
And he was sorry for the insult, but there was still a small kernel of hurt which had survived even Gabriel's gentle apologies. It had taken longer than perhaps it should have for Bertie to trace it to its deepest root.
"Why did you pretend not to know me?" Bertie looked up to meet Gabriel's eyes, trying to seem neither uncertain nor vulnerable, when in truth he felt both. "I understand why Miss Allen acted as she did, as of course she must, but you..."
Bertie shook his head slightly, seeking an explanation, hoping he might have missed the obvious. "Our meeting was innocent, as was our lunch together, and our business in France, whatever our conversation and actions in private might have been. I consider you a friend, as much as a lover. Did you believe it so impossible for anyone else to conceive that we might be friends? Wouldn't it have been easier to simply pretend I hadn't met your daughter, than to claim we'd never been acquainted?"
“There was a great deal I was uncertain of,” Gabriel admitted, honestly. “I didn’t know what you’d told your parents, I was terrified for Leah, I saw your own uncertainty, and I made a call. You’re right -- I could have brought you in on it, had us both craft a story together, let you take the lead for how you’d be preferred to be considered, but mercy, as soon as your parents came over, and you were referring to Leah as my wife, I went on instinct, and I went simple. I fell into a role and went with it.”
He sighed. “It may have come from an impulse I had to close ranks, to protect Leah, but I…” he looked over at Bertie. “I was already trusting you with her reputation. The least I could’ve done is respected our friendship as well, which I do value, and knowing how you feel about it, would declare it in public, given the chance to be a touch more graceful in future. I’m... ” he shrugged. “I’m rather used to having to pretend not to know people in public, I’m afraid. Or at least not presume too much.”
A small smile flitted across his face. “And to be fair,” he added, “as innocent as it was, you were rather reticent when it came to divulge the story of our meeting to your friends.”
Bertie looked away again, blushing yet another time, but this time there was a smile on his face to match Gabriel's. "That," Bertie protested, "is because I came off as an utter tit, not because I wouldn't acknowledge you. Although now I know you're the owner of a singing academy, you've become a rather more scandalous acquaintance than I gave you credit for."
He glanced back at Gabriel, so that hopefully that unintended dart would not strike home when Bertie only meant it as a joke to lighten the mood. "I do see, though. I'm not a clever actor, and jumped to the wrong conclusion when Miss Allen gave her name. I suppose we were all only acting on impulse, thoughtlessly, and with haste. I certainly reacted badly upon seeing you, so the fault is partly mine. Forgive me."
It didn't entirely dispel the lingering unhappiness, the feeling of something out of place, but at least they were talking more easily again. Bertie cleared his throat, and looked down again before forcing his eyes back up.
"I should tell you...not least because I'd be a hypocrite to do otherwise, and because it might well matter one day, should we find ourselves in another such situation." Bertie caught himself began to fidget, and forced himself to stop. "I was...I had a lover, among the Black Park pack. We had been together for several years, but he...he met a young woman he wished to court, and after they became engaged, he said he would not see me again, for her sake. And his...the Alpha of Black Park," Bertie forged on, pushing through the obstacles of a tightening throat and constriction around his chest which hardly let him breathe, "asked me to stay away, for both the young man and his lady."
Bertie rubbed at his wrist, and admitted with some difficulty, "It is perhaps a sore spot, for me to feel underfoot and unwanted, and I know that was not your intention. I took it badly."
Gabriel had read Bertie’s poems before he’d met the man, and the devotion to the interests of Black Park, and the careful dance he’d done with Matthew and his insistence (regardless of how convoluted it was) to not step foot on grounds without permission made a touch more sense.
Bertie was heartbroken, in more ways than one, and it was impossible to look at without feeling a touch of sympathy in turn.
He very nearly reached for Bertie again, but remembering his earlier stiffness and discomfort, held back.
“Well. It is their loss, all round,” Gabriel replied, clearing his throat a little. “You are most certainly neither, as far as I am concerned.” He looked over at Bertie, steadily. “You deserve far better, and I am heartily sorry for my part in it. I would hate for you to feel otherwise. I am fond of you, you know,” he added. “And I would like to claim you as my friend, if you’ll still have me.” he added.
Bertie shook his head, but it wasn't a refusal, only a defense of the pack he still felt connected to. "No, they were right to ask it--it was for the lady's sake, her reputation, as you protect your daughter. And I'm not pack." That hurt, as it always did, but he swallowed it down. "It was the easiest way. The best way."
And Bertie would defend his Alpha's decisions to the end, whether they aided him or not.
"Those poems you admired, when we first met," Bertie said, after a moment of reflection, gaze lost to the amber liquid remaining in his glass. "They were for Black Park. For the pack. I feel...I've lost something of myself, without them. Like an arm, or a foot."
Bertie sighed, and put his glass down, pushing it away. He was maudlin enough--he didn't need further drink to help him along the way. "I'm sorry. I should have said, of course I will be your friend, and I'm sorry for my part in our falling out. You deserved better." That was nearly rote--Bertie had known enough poets of passionate humour at Cambridge to have need of such an apology almost every fortnight.
That didn't make it less than sincere. Bertie looked at Gabriel again, a touch of a hopeful smile at one corner of his mouth. "Shall we agree to forgive each other, and start anew?"
“I should like that very much,” Gabriel replied, his own smile curling up at the edge in echo of Bertie’s. “Well, then,” he said, practically, with a look around the room. “You seem to be up to your neck in papers, my dear. What would be the most immediately useful to put it all in a bit of perspective? Letting me treat you dinner and conversation? Rubbing your feet while you complain a bit? A good quick tumble to clear your head? Or ought I leave you to swim in it for a while? Fair warning, if you don’t emerge in a week, I shall send around a cleaning-maid with a shovel to help dig you out.”
Bertie had already thought of asking Gabriel to take him to bed and help him overcome his bleak humor, but he also though it might complicate their friendship to become lovers again, when it was so recently under strain. The fact that he couldn't decide suggested he probably ought not to give into temptation, even if he did long to do so.
He laughed, but it sounded as unhappy as he'd been a moment ago. "I seem to have stumbled into a few things...or rather, they've stumbled into me." Bertie crossed his arms over his chest and tried not to think too directly on knives and bones. "I don't know that it will do any good to dwell on it, I feel I've looked at everything a thousand times, but I haven't found anything to go on yet."
Bertie found that at some point he'd risen and begun to pace, agitation forcing him into motion. He stopped and pinched his nose, eyes closed. "Will you recite something for me?" he asked, because asking Gabriel to hold him and take him to bed after all was an impulse that grew stronger with every heartbeat. "A poem? I can't see the words clearly any longer, they've all started swimming around."
Gabriel frowned at the hollowness in Bertie’s laugh, the pinched nose, the slump that spoke of worries beyond a simple bruising and feeling a touch rejected, and very nearly got out of his chair, but things seemed tenuous enough at the moment, and he didn’t want to misconstrue after having so thoroughly bungled things earlier.
The offer was on the table, and he figured the best possible thing at the moment was to simply take Bertie at face value.
“Of course,” he replied, looking up at him. “Please. Whatever you’d like.”
Bertie shook his head again, but raised his head to offer Gabriel a weary smile. "Anything you like," he returned. "There are books on the tables if you need one, but I seem to recall that you know quite a few by heart."
The memory of that particular morning was a welcome one, of Gabriel's velvet voice rising and falling over passages as smooth as his tone while Bertie tried to distract him from them, and Bertie's own rushes of words like a wave crashing over the rocks as he came closer and closer, only to stutter and lose the thread, and groan his torment over the sound of Gabriel's laugh.
Even that calmed him a little, putting things back into some sense of order. "Choose something?" Bertie requested softly, wanting to hear the words more than the fragments of his memory. "Please."
This led to a pause -- would something about melancholy, or love lost make the mood darker? Would a frothy little nothing be able to break through Bertie’s state?
After a moment, Gabriel stood (there was something about Whitman that made it impossible to recite him while sitting -- lolling on the grass, or in bed, or planting one’s feet firmly on the ground and squaring one’s shoulders, yes -- but never sitting), and launched into I Sing the Body Electric. A celebration of life, and beauty, and human nature.
The fourth stanza was his favorite, and he put particular feeling into it as he spoke it --
“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.”
Bertie had thought that hearing measured verse and rhyme would settle him and clear his head, but from the second line to fall from Gabriel's lips, all Bertie could think of was the pack at Black Park, moving freely among the crowd and constantly touching, marking, claiming, casual brushes of hands against skin that said you belong here, and by the end he could hardly bear the weight of it crushing his chest.
He pressed his hands to his eyes to stop the hot press of emotion behind them, and when Gabriel had fallen silent, the echoes of the poem dying out, Bertie drew in a shuddering breath. "God, I miss them," he choked. "I miss them so much."
He turned then and walked blindly and directly into Gabriel's chest, needing to feel someone's skin against his, even only at wrists below cuffs and jaws above collars, to wrap his arms around another's back and rub his cheek against Gabriel's, and know he was leaving some small imprint behind to say that he'd been here, and been known.
Gabriel’d clearly struck a chord, a deep one without entirely realizing it, but the dam had broken open, perhaps for the better, and the best he could do was hold on.
It’d been no end of difficult to keep to himself after Bertie’s first shrug-off -- his obvious misery was no end of hard to stand by and watch, and upon Bertie’s shaking confession, very nearly closed the distance himself.
He wrapped his arms around him, and buried his face in the crook of his neck, and mumbled apologies and assurances and snatches of nonsense, rubbing his back.
Bertie pretended, not very well, that he was not leaking tears onto the shoulder of Gabriel's coat, but he'd been bottling everything over the past week in an attempt to deal with it all, and rather suddenly been swamped by a flood of it all at once. He held on and let the drone of Gabriel's voice, more than his words, calm him until he could pull himself together and lift his face from the damp fabric, letting go of the tight fist of fabric he held in order to scrub his eyes dry.
"Lord, what a silly sot I am," Bertie said, with only a small and hopefully well-disguised sniffle. "Two different people have threatened to kill me this week, one with a knife to my throat, Mal breaks off his engagement and decides he doesn't want to marry after all, there are assassins after Lord Black, everything goes to pieces with you, and I fall apart over a few lines of verse."
He managed to more or less put himself back in order, but didn't move away from Gabriel now that he was here, one arm still around him and holding on for dear life. "I'm sorry," Bertie finished, brushing at the damp patch on Gabriel's coat. "You didn't deserve that, either. It's service above the bounds of friendship."
Gabriel kissed Bertie’s forehead, and his arm tightened a fraction around his waist. “Hush about that,” he said, quietly. “Truly. I’m glad we’ve sorted our house some, and heavens knows, there’s never anything wrong with wanting a bit of comfort. Mercy, that’s enough to lay anyone flat. No wonder words are running together.”
He rested his cheek against Bertie’s head. “Ought I to be worried about the threats? Are they ongoing? I suppose you’re well enough covered in regards to safety should you need it, given your line of work, but still, I don’t like to hear about knives in your vicinity.”
Bertie wondered if this episode might not be helping his case about not being seen as young and immature, but he felt wrung-out and cherished and quite honestly found he didn't care. He left his eyes closed and rested his head on Gabriel's chest, turning his nose toward the warmth of Gabriel's neck.
"I don't know," Bertie admitted tiredly, unable to raise any particular alarm over the subject at this moment, after so many days of jumping at every shadow and feeling the ghost of razor-sharp ice against his hammering pulse. "A woman leapt out at me, dragged me into an alley, and told me if I screamed she would slit my throat with the knife she had conveniently in place for the purpose. Then she told me my only value was in being expendable, so that she could simply get rid of me should I fail to do everything she asked, or presumably if I get caught by whomever opposes her and won't appreciate my meddling. And I'm not to inform my superiors, or word will get back to her, and then she'll kill me anyway. It wasn't an optimistic conversation. It's been," Bertie reflected, "a very eventful week."
“So I’ve gathered,” Gabriel replied, frowning a bit. “For the record, I’d like to respectfully disagree with her assessment, in general,” he said, his voice light enough.
“Her demands are patently ridiculous, given you’ve taken an oath to serve the Crown, and not her whims. All that shouting and threatening seems like an act of desperation -- which can be dangerous, no doubt,” Gabriel added, not wanting to downplay what must’ve been a rather horrifying experience. “Still. If she was so blasted certain she’d get wind of your telling others, why would she take such an obvious route? If the department’s in her back pocket, eyes and ears everywhere, she wouldn’t need to recruit you by force. They’d already be feeding her whatever she needed to know. ...I’m sure you’ve thought through all of this a thousand times over already, but dearest, you do hold some leverage against her -- she’s threatened your life, which is a crime, you’ve seen her face, and you know what she’s after. That, and she’s underestimated you.”
He sighed, and rubbed his cheek against Bertie’s hair. “You could make yourself a little too high profile to push around, too costly to go after, by requesting the protection of Lord Black -- I know, but it’s worth an attempt given how you’ve been serving him -- or you can tell your superiors, and make certain they immediately go to her higher-ups and complain about her shocking lack of protocol and due process, so both your superior and hers are now made responsible for getting her in line, and keeping you safe as well, to prevent an embarrassment. Decidedly riskier, but still worth thinking about, especially if you have a notion of whose interests she represents.”
Gabriel was trying his best not to be offended by the rank unprofessionalism of it all, and failing.
He paused. “...I do realize,” he added, “that I’m trying to provide solutions. If that’s massively unhelpful, do let me know?”
Bertie pulled back enough to look admiringly up at Gabriel. "Why aren't you an inspector?"
Gabriel had taken avenues Bertie hadn't, yet--though he had, in fact, devoted serious thought to the matter, it seemed as though he'd only just gotten through that before the next crisis had occurred. "I did threaten to arrest her," he confessed. "I would have, if I'd been able. She's--" Bertie paused, considering how much he ought to say before finishing, "Not human. It seems her concern is that my superiors are corrupt and spying on the Night Watch on behalf of persons unknown. Which..."
Bertie sighed, and leaned back into Gabriel's reassuring solidity. "I don't believe any of them are corrupt in the way she means it. We've all taken an oath, and I have no reason to suspect anyone of betraying it. But we're all biased, aren't we? Everyone has their own race, their own interests, their own superiors. The members of the covens and packs, certainly, but also the two courts, and...all the rest of it."
Bertie closed his eyes again for a moment. "We could do this sitting down," he suggested, before offering with slightly more boldness, "or on a bed." Not a little ruefully, he admitted, "There's more, after this."
He decided to be daring, and tilted his face up to kiss Gabriel's mouth. "There are some things I can't tell you, because of my oath to the Night Watch," he admitted. "But I think it's...not the worst idea for me to remain visibly distanced from Black Park, for the foreseeable future. It may be safer if my assistance isn't commonly known."
Bertie had been talking for quite some time, it seemed, but there was time enough to steal one more kiss. "And you're always helpful. More than I've been gracious enough to tell you."
“Bed, then,” Gabriel replied, with a quietly pleased grin. “I have a feeling I’d very much like to continue to pet you a bit. Mercy, I had to practically sit on my hands earlier, when I wasn’t sure of what would be welcome.”
“And of course there are things you can’t say,” he added, kissing Bertie back. “One of the things I rather like about you is your devotion. I wouldn’t make you feel guilty about that for all the world.”
It took a little disentangling, some shucking off of jackets and shoes, and a few more kisses -- the sort Gabriel tended to associate with assurance and comfort as opposed to passion -- but they were soon curled in the center of an admittedly rumpled bedspread, Gabriel’s arm wrapped around Bertie.
“So,” he said, quietly. “She’s worried about corruption. It seems as though her current position is rather tenuous, then. She must be quite out on a limb. Do you want to keep poking at Miss Knives a little while longer, or come back to her later?” He asked, running his hand down Bertie’s back.
Bertie still wasn't sure he was making the wisest decision, moving back toward intimacy with Gabriel this way, but he set it aside for the moment. They had enough to deal with.
"She frightened me," Bertie admitted, although that fear was muted, and a long way off. "I believe she's...unhinged. A woman like that might do anything. I have a method of contacting her, should I discover what she wants to know. I don't know that I'll use it."
His free arm roved a little over Gabriel's back and shoulder, seeking the reassurance of touch. "She showed me things, objects, that she was looking for. She wants me to watch for them, and turn them over to her, presumably before anyone else in the Night Watch can do the same for someone else. I'm not sure whether or not to mention this to anyone on the Watch...and if so, whom?"
Bertie rolled onto his back to gaze up at the ceiling, leaving his hand curled into Gabriel's shirt. "I trust Jamie completely, but he's not technically law enforcement, and he can't speak to anyone else anyway. I believe I trust Orwell, and Cavendish, and Giles...all of them, really. But what if I'm wrong, or they have other loyalties they can't help, and feel they have to remove me from the equation?"
There were simple ways to do that. They wouldn't even have to kill him--Orwell could simply remove him from his position, and Bertie would be locked out. For Lord Black's sake, he couldn't afford for that to happen.
“You could always test the waters,” Gabriel replied, thoughtfully. “Suggest you’ve heard a rumor of something that looks a bit like what she’s looking for to one of them, and see what they do after. Your Jamie might be of use in that regard,” he added. “If nothing comes of it, they’re to be trusted, and should the objects come through the Night Watch, you’ll have a better idea as to how to proceed. I wonder…” he added, nestling a little closer. “If she’s so concerned about corruption, the objects themselves must be of substantial value or power. It very well could be that her neck is the one she’s most worried about.”
"She's..." Bertie hesitated, but he had no loyalty to Charlindra Shiverthorn, and he did trust Gabriel. Bertie rolled closer again, wrapping his arm around Gabriel and bringing his face so close that their noses touched. "Reporting to Mab," he breathed, and then moved back just far enough to give Gabriel a knowing look over the significance of that.
"I'll do that," Bertie agreed a moment later, at normal volume. "I have sketches, what I think I remember her showing me. I'll talk to a few people and see what comes of it, if anything."
It was only a moment before Bertie realized the kinds of things Gabriel might offer next, and he reached up to lay a light finger over Gabriel's lips--not enough to silence him, just to make the request echoed by his pleading look. "I value your advice," he murmured. "But I don't want you mixed up in this any more than you are. Don't offer to get involved, please. I've already set you in the path of French assassins and werewolves."
Gabriel paused for a few beats, and then nodded. “Should things get truly dire,” he said, “I would like you to reconsider. But I’ll keep it at advice for the time being.” He caught Bertie’s eye, his hand resting on Bertie’s back. “And what we’ve said doesn’t leave this room. I swear it.”
“...If she’s working for Her Chilliness, and wants to keep a low profile, she’s doing a piss poor job of it,” Gabriel continued, smiling a little to cover his worry. “And no wonder she’s nervous. Still, at least you know the lay of the land some, and are poised to possibly learn more. Just try not to swear any oaths of fealty to her, if you can manage it. Even an ‘I promise’ or an ‘I swear’ can carry weight. The Sidhe are rather tricky about that sort of thing, and would consider an oath to them far more important than an oath to any other, including the Crown. They’re rather high-minded that way.”
Bertie's lips quirked into a smile, and he traced two fingers lightly over Gabriel's mouth, since they were already there, and it was so pleasantly-shaped. "I only repeated what she'd said, as if agreeing," he promised. He was relatively certain of that, anyway--he'd tried to be careful, but it had been difficult to think clearly. "She didn't seem to notice."
Or if she had, she'd dismissed Bertie as being too insignificant to put further effort into. "Have you met her?" he asked, curious. "Mab? Or either of the Queens?"
“Good man,” Gabriel replied, smiling back, and kissing lightly at his fingers.
“And no, I haven’t. But I have been friendly with some of the members of their Court over the years.” The smile turned into a playful grin. “I can’t see ever being honored for Services to the Kingdom, so I suppose if I were to catch a glimpse, it would be under rather less than pleasant circumstances. Nevertheless, I do have a rather decent curtsy in my back pocket should it prove useful.” He laughed a little. “And the closest I’ve come to Our Beloved Monarch is… oh… sixth in line for succession, I believe? No. It was seventh. He certainly did go on about it.”
Bertie raised both eyebrows, grinning. "Friendly?" he echoed, with ironic emphasis. He laughed as well, and followed the impulse to roll on top of Gabriel, kneeling over him and shaking his head. "Are you sure you wouldn't be honored for your services? I'm sure they were diligently provided."
It was a blatant relief to see Bertie laugh again, and Gabriel leaned up to kiss him with a smile of his own, his hands resting on Bertie’s hips. “Oh, so very diligently,” he said, grinning. “I wonder if there’s an Order I’d be eligible for? If there is, no doubt, the medal would have to say something delightful in Latin. …..ob potentiam claritatis eius in os,” he managed, wrinkling his nose at the hackneyed attempt to translate on the fly.
Bertie laughed so hard he nearly tipped over onto Gabriel's face, and had to catch himself with one hand. "Quod culus tibi purior salillo est," he murmured, nuzzling Gabriel's cheek, because if there was one thing Bertie had learned at Cambridge - specifically, at the literature students' infamous toga-party readings of bawdy poetry - it was filthy Latin verse. "Cum depilatos, coleos portes et vulturino mentulam parem collo."
Bertie’s recitation managed to surprise a loud, undignified roar of laughter from Gabriel, the sort that left him gasping and teary-eyed, and he looked up at Bertie, wiping his eyes. “Mercy,” he gasped. “Have you ever been to the museum in Naples? It’s quite the education -- if they still let people in the room, that is,” he added, grinning.
Bertie shook his head, still smiling. "You'll have to tell me about it." Gabriel was well-traveled, and his mentions of places he'd been and things he'd seen and experienced often made Bertie wish he had that kind of education as well. He'd never have enough time to do everything Gabriel had, he suspected. Not if he remained human.
He settled down into the crook of Gabriel's arm, which obligingly shifted to accommodate him, and draped his own arm over Gabriel's chest. After a moment of companionable quiet, he offered, "I'm glad you came."
Gabriel kissed the top of Bertie’s head. “As am I,” he replied. “And you took me to Paris, mon canard, I’ll just simply have to return the favor sometime and show you in person.” He grinned. “To tide you over, however, let’s just say the ancient romans loved putting little wings all over everything.”
[Translation: Your ass is purer than a saltcellar. (Catullus 23) Your balls are hairless, and your cock is as smooth as a vulture’s neck. (Martial, Epigrams IX.27)]