Who: Bertram Eden, Zipporah Bakst, Gabriel Allen What: On the subject of demons Where: Bertie's rooms When: 16th & 17th December, 1888 Rating: PG-13
Gabriel was the first to come calling.
He’d fully intended to go to a holiday party at someone-or-another’s (he’d been to so many this season he could barely keep track, even with Lydia’s careful reminders), but Bertie’s present had arrived in the mail that morning, and it’d been thoughtful in a dozen different ways, thoughtful and understanding both, in that ineffably Bertie way, and he’d wanted for a touch more understanding of late, so he figured it was a better use of his time to show up with some mincemeat pies and deliver his thank-you in person.
That, and Zipporah’s recollection of Bertie’s healing had been unpleasant (to say the least) -- he figured it’d do him some good to confirm his friend’s being whole and happy face to face.
He was, by all appearances, and certainly pleased enough to see him, but after a rather enthusiastic thank-you was offered and received, he found himself slipping into a slightly pensive mood during the quiet pause before Bertie inevitably started speaking again.
He was always aware of what he took -- it was the responsible thing, after all -- and of his current lovers, Merrick and Bertie seemed the most in tune with the sheer necessity of it, the transactional nature, the fact that he wasn’t just promiscuous due to a lack of restraint, that he required it to survive, that he fed from them.
One of Bertie’s presents had been a poem (rather fittingly) about gifts -- gifts that were needed by others and taken contrasted with gifts offered knowingly and gladly, and the joy of giving when one’s heart was open, and he could see Bertie so clearly in every line; the gift of his abilities to commune with the spirits, the gift of his friendship and trust (something Gabriel was not about to take for granted these days), the gift of his very life force -- it all so easily pivoted between his natural generosity of spirit and being taken advantage of, and oh, the part about needing and taking -- that hit a little close to home.
“I don’t think I’ve ever asked you whether you found it odd, to be referred to so blatantly as food,” he said, breaking the silence, running his hand up Bertie’s arm.
Since the night Gabriel had broken down and told Bertie what had happened to him, what he'd seen, Bertie had felt oddly protective of him for someone who came up to Gabriel's shoulder and had been carried by him through an inn, once upon a time. He saw a fragility in Gabriel now that was easily overlooked when masked by Gabriel's muscular build and easy charm.
As such, he'd wrapped his arms around Gabriel and made himself a cushion to lean on, his fingers and lips wandering lightly over skin warmed by the coal heater before them, where they'd curled up together on the worn loveseat. Bertie wondered, if he became a member of the Black Park pack and a werewolf in truth, whether his instincts would still tell him Gabriel was his to watch out for and look over. Pack hierarchy was a relatively simple thing, once you knew everyone's place in it, but Bertie already had his own little pack of friends and lovers, and he didn't know how they fit in.
Bertie touched his lips to Gabriel's hairline while he thought about his answer. "I suppose I've been used to thinking of myself that way, after I found out about vampires. Everyone at the Night Watch, really, could eat me if they wanted to, apart from the witches." He thought of Mrs Linden tapping into his gift and amended, "Them too, honestly. I find your method of digestion a far more pleasant experience."
He dropped a few more kisses into Gabriel's hair, then added, "Anyway, you don't think of me quite like that, do you? Not like a...bœuf bourguignon. I know we tease one another, but I've never truly imagined you see me that way, as a...meal, only, and not a person. It doesn't bother me, if it's worrying you. I hope it isn't worrying you."
“I don’t, no,” Gabriel replied, looking up at him. “And I suppose your poem put me in a rather thoughtful mood, is all. In the best of ways,” he added, reaching up to brush the hair out of Bertie’s eyes, “as the best of poetry tends to do,” he continued, with an affectionate smile curling up at the edges of his mouth.
“It can be…” he tipped his chin. “....Well. It can be ridiculously complicated, to have one’s life so dependent on the gifts of others. To have it all wrapped up in trust and relationships and feeling, always, even when it’s incredibly temporary. To have it be a need.”
"Flatterer," Bertie accused, though the compliment made him smile. "I'm glad you liked it. Or that it made you think, anyway."
He couldn't honestly say he understood Gabriel's situation, as it was well out of his experience, and he could only do his best to empathize. He tried, regardless, imagining himself in a situation where he was so dependent upon what amounted to the charity of others, for such an intimate offering.
"I think we separate feeling and the physical act poorly oftentimes, when we do at all," Bertie admitted. "I'm always aware that it means more - or differently, rather - to you, than to me, and I don't ever want you to feel you're using me, or that I feel I've been...divorced from myself, in my use to you. This is coming out all wrong," he lamented, shaking his head and smiling ruefully. "I'm sorry. I only mean that I do try to understand, but if I can better express that to you, to make it easier...for you to ask, if it does become a need, or even to ask when it isn't..."
Bertie stopped, getting tangled up in words again that imperfectly captured his thoughts, and therefore might imply something he didn't mean. He took a moment to think over the heart of the problem, which he thought might be that Gabriel felt isolated by who he was, set apart by desires that weren't entirely like those of others around him. To a much lesser degree, Bertie could understand that.
"Would it make you feel any better," he asked tentatively, "to know that I think it might be a need for us, as well, though we might claim otherwise? To be touched, with care and intent...I think in our own way, we grow sick without it, many of us. Perhaps not as you do, but...it's not an unequal exchange. You might gain nourishment, but we who are lucky enough to be with you, we also gain something by the act. Not only pleasure, but a certain...happiness. A well-being."
He ducked his head and looked at Gabriel through his lashes. "I hope you don't feel I'm belittling you or the difficulty of your situation by saying such a thing. I just thought it might help, if you knew you weren't so alone as you might feel."
That earned him a kiss, a soft one. “I don’t suppose it’s a topic of frequent conversation, is it?” Gabriel replied, settling back against Bertie. “Perhaps we shall have to invent it as we go.” He reached up to brush Bertie’s cheek gently with his fingers. “And I don’t imagine I’d quite considered it that way before,” he allowed. “I ought to have. Whitman would agree with you, I think.”
“It’d be no end of ghastly if it were nothing but release, I’d imagine,” he added, quietly. “If feeling weren’t a part of it. Mechanical, and cold, and unpleasant. I wonder if it’d taste like much of anything at all? And what that implies, about requiring the feeling too?” He shook his head. “And I don’t think you’ve ever belittled me,” he said, tipping up to kiss Bertie once more, an echo of his earlier thank you.
“So does that make me more a gardener than a parasite?” He asked, laughing a little. “Ought I call you mon courgette now?” He looked back up at Bertie, a question he hadn’t quite asked answered nonetheless. “I would be sure to ask,” he added, quietly. “You give so much, Bertie, I don’t want you ever thinking I take it for granted.”
"You can call me whatever you like, I think," Bertie answered, a little shy in saying so, nuzzling Gabriel's cheek. "And I don't. You could ask more, you know. You offered once, to become something for me, or to give me something if I asked for it. I hope...well, if I've never said, I should say it. If there's something you'd like that I can provide, I'd want you to ask for it. I won't take it lightly, in granting or refusing. I know it's complicated, for you, but you...well, you give more of yourself than I do, and all for others."
Not merely because he was a very good man, Bertie thought, but out of necessity, of survival. Gabriel lived on a knife's-edge of need that he could only satisfy through the pleasure of others. For the first time, Bertie found the thought of that overwhelmingly exhausting.
"If I consented," Bertie reasoned slowly, "but it was an act you found more pleasure in than I, would you still obtain what you need from it? Or...might it be better, in some ways, if an act was divorced from my pleasure and your need? If it was solely for your pleasure's sake? I don't know that I could avoid thoroughly enjoying anything with you, but I could try," he considered, audibly dubious. "Perhaps something...exotic?"
He didn't really know what qualified as exotic, for a sensual and carnal being who thrived on the erotic. It was probably something he'd never even imagined, and which would have scandalized any respectable lady in England.
Apart from the ones who were succubi, of course.
He caught Gabriel's hand in his, playing loosely with his fingers. "You know I've never seen you as a substitute for...for Mal, or for the pack. But...I suppose to be fair, you have made a difference for me in making up the lack of touch. So yes, Whitman had it right, for me. That poem you gave me..." Bertie swallowed. "It spoke to me in a language I understood at once. I think it's a need, of a different kind than yours, but one that's essential nonetheless. You give me as much as I give you, just of a different kind of nourishment."
Laughing softly, Bertie tugged on one of Gabriel's fingers and asked, "So how does it feel, to be thought of as food?"
“You know I enjoy feeding you,” Gabriel replied with a bit of a tease in his voice. “This, just now, is quite lovely for me as well, you know,” he added, bringing Bertie’s fingers close to kiss at them. “Those few minutes after, when I can…” he looked up at Bertie, and a small smile flashed across his face. “I can touch you, and not be hungry,” he said, simply. “When we’ve both been satisfied, and can be for a little, it’s something I look forward to.”
It was his turn to laugh. “And I can see that beautiful brain working away,” he added, fondly, leaning up to kiss at his jaw. “I could hold off finishing next time, wait til after you’re fully satisfied. For science,” he added, with amusement.
"What if I...satisfied myself, before you arrived? Would that be more relaxing for you?" Bertie tried to ignore the hot flush on his cheeks and admitted, "I suppose that rather defeats the purpose, though. Or could you still...you could still..."
Feed on me sounded crass and inconsiderate of Gabriel's feelings, so he switched to, "...find satisfaction with me, so long as I consented?"
The thought of that, of Gabriel having him while he was soft and spent, the two of them at such different heights in their pleasures, was an odd one. Bertie decided not to dwell on it, as they could cross that bridge when they came to it.
Bertie laid his cheek on Gabriel's hair for a moment, and smiled as he teased, "I think you make a fine gardener, anyway. I've never had reason to complain about your attending to my courgette. You handle it very skillfully."
He chuckled by way of reply, fingers skating against Bertie’s knee.
“I’m not utterly bereft, you know,” he said, with a grin. “When I want it, there’s always my own sort, or vampires, and while I don’t indulge often, it can be a pleasant change.”
He brushed the fabric of Bertie’s trousers lightly with his fingertips. “If there is anything I want from you, I’ll tell you in a heartbeat, and knowing I might, that’s a gift in and of itself, but I must admit, I like what we are already plenty. And you, for that matter.” He looked up at Bertie. “You wrote me poetry,” he said, his voice soft and low.
Bertie leaned down to meet those words with a kiss, one that stretched out long and still until he broke it. He'd just been thinking of poetry, and should have known Gabriel might think along the same lines.
"You feed me sandwiches," Bertie replied quietly. "And I can feed you in other ways. But poetry feeds the soul. And both of us need that kind of nourishment as well."
He brushed Gabriel's cheek with his fingertips, and laid another kiss on the line of his cheekbone. "You're one of the few people I know who feels about poetry the way I do. Who understands it, and values it. I can't tell you what a gift that is, to be able to...be myself, with you." Bertie wrapped his arm more snugly around Gabriel's chest, and found himself nuzzling automatically, rubbing his cheek under the line of Gabriel's jaw to mingle their scents.
"You said you wanted to read it," Bertie said softly. "And I knew you would appreciate it. So I wanted to write it for you."
He smiled a little, and let his nose bump the hinge of Gabriel's jaw. "It's not all that altruistic, really, when you come over to reward me with flattery." The smile grew as he considered their current position, curled up together in front of the heater, warmed by cuddling and kisses. "And other things."
Zipporah showed up the following day, Ach trailing behind her, laden with bags, as if he were a significantly younger, less jolly, Jewish Santa Claus. She nodded briskly upon seeing him, and, ignoring the slightly horrified look on his face, swept into the room.
“I brought you soup,” she said, looking over at him. “Do you have a way for to heat it?”
"Miss Bakst," Bertie stammered, shocked at the impropriety of an unmarried woman in his rooms, even with a chaperone. "Mr Bakst," he added hastily, for the benefit of anyone who might have heard him from the hall, and sketched an automatic bow to Ach, as Zipporah was already past him.
"Yes, there's a stove--but I'm not...I'm not ill. Although I thank you, that's very kind of you." Soup would be welcome, honestly, since Bertie lived the life of a bachelor, eating at clubs or on whatever he could keep for a few days in his rooms, but that still didn't tell him what he'd done to deserve it.
"Am I ill?" was his next guess, the hand with Zipporah's red string attached coming up to massage the phantom ache in his chest. Realizing he was still standing at the door, Bertie latched it and hurried over to help with pans and bowls. "Here, please, let me get that for you."
He cast another glance at the serene Ach, who seemed unmoved by the fact of Bertie's bed in plain sight and rumpled from...
...from sleeping, obviously, and Bertie couldn't decide whether to ignore it or covertly tidy it as best he could.
"Are you well, Miss Bakst?" he asked, resorting to pleasantries in the face of wild mental flailing. "And your family? Is it...is it a holiday season for you too, now? Please forgive me for not knowing the dates."
“I came over for to see if you were,” Zipporah replied. “There is tea as well. And rugelach,” she added, pulling out various parcels, the tin of cookies wrapped with a ribbon. “We are well enough,” she added, passing him the tiffin holding the soup. “It is Hanukkah for a few days yet, and we have much to be thankful for.”
She set the tin of biscuits and the glass jar of loose tea on the table before seating herself, looking over at him intently as he juggled pots and the tiffin of soup, clattering around a stove that hadn't seen much use.
His color was good, without that yellow cast to his skin, and he seemed sharp enough.
“I should like to check for to see how you are doing,” she said, biting her lip. She shrugged. “You can keep your shirt on this time,” she added.
Bertie cast a panicked look at Ach, who hadn't been brought in to chaperone the last time he'd been alone with Zipporah, and explained hastily, "As a healer," just in case that wasn't clear. He took in the feast she was laying out for them, considered her neighborhood and the family she must be supporting, and began hesitantly, "Miss Bakst..."
But it was the holiday season, for her as well as for him, and he had given her a gift as thanks for her kindness and friendship. She was doing the same, giving him gifts she had made with her own hands, and was staying to share them with him, and he could not find it in him to be so churlish as to refuse her.
It took him a moment to figure out what to do with the odd container she'd handed him, but soon enough he had the soup on and dishes set out for each of them, a bachelor's set of cheap tin plates and bowls. "Thank you," he said sincerely, as their meal came together and the soup showed a few warning bubbles. "This is very generous of you. Could you tell me what the dishes are?"
Since she'd said she was checking in on him - as well as giving what she likely wouldn't call a Christmas gift - Bertie added, "I've had fewer nightmares by far, since you attended me. And they're the usual sort, not...not what was happening before." He shuddered a little at the reminder of being frozen in terror, the burning ghost looming in shadow on his wall, crowned by the absence of a human head.
He hesitated again, then asked, "Is there danger to those around me, while I'm still healing? Anything malicious, or...or the ghost, that might yet be able to find me? Particularly..." He bit his lip, but it was better to ask than remain silent and put an innocent at risk. "A child?"
“It is a matzo soup. Chicken and dumpling,” she said, as the closest equivalent that came to mind. “And a sweet biscuit, because soup and tea are meant for to nourish, but it is the time of year for being indulgent.”
She frowned thoughtfully. “Your soul, it is more sensitive to the spirits at the moment, but I should not want for to… to close you off entirely. Unless that is what you want. Perhaps I can send by a pendant you might wear when you wish to be in private? And when you are around those you would not wish to expose? I don't think it is catching…” she paused, gnawing on her lip. “But you did not tell me all, last time, and I do not know how it may play a part.”
She flushed a little, but pushed through her embarrassment.
“...You did not tell me that you had a demon feeding from you,” she added by way of clarity.
Bertie was glad he hadn't been holding anything just then, because he was quite sure he would have dropped it. She'd phrased it tactfully enough, but the color on her cheeks told him that she knew exactly how demons fed. Bertie's heart pounded. How had she known? Was Gabriel in danger? Would she come forward with her accusation, to ruin Miss Allen and Gabriel alike?
He decided to pour the soup into bowls, and pretended his hands didn't shake as he did. No, he couldn't believe Zipporah would do such a thing, regardless of how she felt. He didn't know how her religion viewed such practices, but he suspected it was not favorably. She hadn't mentioned the demon being a man, however, so either her quarrel wasn't with that aspect, or she didn't know.
She knew something, though.
"I didn't think it mattered," he answered honestly. "I went to see you for the nightmares, the haunting, and the necromancy. Perhaps," he admitted in fairness, "I should have told you there was another reason my...energy levels...might be low, so I am sorry for that. I simply didn't think of it. The two were unrelated in my mind. I do beg your pardon for the oversight."
The formality felt a little silly, but he also felt exposed and unguarded, and manners were easy to fall back on. Bertie even offered a small bow of apology before offering her the soup. Ridiculously, the gesture made him feel a bit like Gabriel.
“Hm,” Zipporah replied, a little skeptically, upon having her suspicions confirmed. “I shall see if everything looks as it should,” she said, as she took the bowl.
She noticed a slight tremble in his fingers, a look of concern over his features, and she paused before eating. “You are not in danger from him, are you?” She asked, quietly, a sick lurch in her stomach upon remembering his bruises, a sudden flash of anger in her eyes. “You are afraid?”
She'd known men who knew all the right things to say in public, but could be monsters behind closed doors. Gabriel’d said a bunch of pretty things about how he required permission, and Bertie had mentioned that his marks had been wanted, but that could be lies -- the sort told to cover rot and suffering and shame.
She reached for his hand. “If you need help you shall have it,” she said, fiercely.
Her care for him, unexpected and humbling as it was, made it possible for Bertie to speak. He squeezed her hand, and forced his voice around the lump in his throat. "Miss Bakst...of course I'm afraid." She'd said he--she knew who it was, so Bertie didn't have to lie as much as he might have. "He has a daughter in society, unmarried. I would ruin him, and her life, if the wrong person heard of it."
If his father heard of it, for a start, though Bertie liked to hope he wouldn't ruin his son for the opportunity to remove his son's lover.
One of his son's lovers. But that was another problem.
Bertie closed his eyes briefly, then decided to go all in. There seemed to be little else for it but to offer the truth, and hope she accepted it.
"He has never hurt me, nor threatened me, nor raised his hand against me," Bertie pledged quietly, too-aware of Ach's eerie silence nearby. "He's always taken care not to leave me too tired, and we meet only occasionally. I...he fed from me yesterday. Would you like to do an examination?" He raised his free hand to the first button on his shirt, prepared this time to submit to her as a healer.
"There are...there is one other thing you might also know, though I don't believe it should affect my health. I'm not a healer, though, so I shouldn't wish to...to assume I know better than you, as I'm sure I do not."
She'd seen him bruised and bitten, freshly-marked, and would assume it was Gabriel's doing. Bertie couldn't allow her to think that, when she feared the worst already. "I'm also the lover of a dragon. That..." He coughed, furiously embarrassed even though he was determined to speak. "You saw some evidence of that, I fear, already."
Zipporah had been about to argue with him, but his follow up comment made her shut her mouth suddenly, her flush deepening.
“Ah,” she replied. She hadn't known there were dragons, real ones, that is, but she understood something of being with a lover who wasn’t quite human and enjoyed biting -- it was now impossible to blush any harder than she already was, though, so she pushed past her mortification with a nod. “I should like for to see,” she said, carefully. “Just the spot over your heart.”
She looked over at him soberly. “I would not tell anyone, if it is as you say,” she said, with a firm set to her chin. “I cannot… there… I should wish for to understand,” she said, a little quietly.
Bertie swallowed. "Miss Bakst," he began, and then changed his mind. "Healer." With a lopsided smile, he suggested, "It might be easier for both of us, if we consider this a professional visit for as long as you have questions? And then..." He glanced at the stove, and the meal she'd laid out for them. "Then we could have a visit afterward, as...as friends. I can always reheat the soup."
He squeezed her hand once before withdrawing it to unbutton the front of his shirt. After another moment of hesitation, he moved to the loveseat, which was at least something like an examination couch. He certainly wouldn't go anywhere near the bed.
Despite requesting Ach's presence as a chaperone, Bertie found himself uncomfortable with the discussion it seemed they might be about to have, made in his presence. Lowering his voice wouldn't help the pretense that this was a professional examination, however, so he kept his volume reasonable and his voice steady when he spoke, and avoided looking at Ach entirely.
"I can certainly sympathize with wanting to understand. I must have asked a hundred questions. You know I'm...I'm not an expert, really," Bertie warned, focusing on conversation as a distraction as he removed his shirt and vest, carefully untwisting the red string around his wrist for Zipporah to inspect as well. "All I can tell you is what little I know. But I will tell you, if I can."
Zipporah rested her palm on his chest closing her eyes and reaching a bit, searching for shadows and finding none.
She could tell he was still healing, but it felt better than it had before, and she exhaled, the worry that'd brought her there finally subsiding some.
“It is better,” she said, nodding. “It is as I would have hoped for.” She tapped briefly on his chest, sounding it, and nodded once more before picking up his wrist and feeling his pulse. “Good,” she said, relieved, fingering the string before re-tying it.
“You give of yourself willingly to a demon,” she said, looking thoughtful. “Does that not give you some pause? Did you know of his nature from the start?”
"From the very start," Bertie confirmed, and then, remembering, added in strict fairness, "Nearly the very start. We met under perfectly normal circumstances, so he didn't know...nor I, that he...but we did speak of it early on. He accompanied me on a trip to France, for an investigation. We became friends. He was...he was honest with me before I was with him," Bertie said quietly, waving an arm around beside him before giving in and finishing aloud. "The ghosts. I don't tell people often. Or at all, really. But he'd been honest, so I wished to be as well."
Bertie shifted a little, uncomfortable at the thought that Zipporah would take objection to their becoming intimates before Gabriel had revealed his nature. "He said he did - would - not take much from me, since I was human and had less to spare, and has been quite careful, so far as I know, to feed well before we share company so that there is less risk of his taking more than he ought. He has answered every question I have with perfect politeness, and he..." Bertie paused, choosing his words with reflection and care.
"He cares deeply, and is more careful of and troubled by his own nature than I believe you or I could ever be. He insists on feeding me when he visits now, bringing sandwiches and such, to be sure I'm taking care of myself." He glanced around at the food Zipporah had brought, and smiled. "I seem to be fortunate in my friends, in that regard."
Bertie chewed on his lip, wondering whether or not to continue. "I...it doesn't give me pause, no. I could tell you more, but I don't know whether you'd want to hear it. I wouldn't wish to make you uncomfortable."
“I have known him for months now,” Zipporah replied, quietly, sitting back. “We have been to one another’s houses, I have met his daughter, we have several friends in common. There was… there was a…” she frowned, and gestured with her hands. “There are stories we tell, of creatures who commune with the devil, who slip into your bed at night, and… and take,” she said, with a frown. “Evil, seductive things without feeling. And to think… to think the stories had some truth to it, that he might not have been the person I thought he was, that he was a devil in the flesh…” she looked down at her hands, clasping them tightly together. “I should like for to know,” she ended, quietly. “If only to learn more than what the stories have told me.”
She looked up at him. “I was so worried for you,” she said, tears pricking in the corners of her eyes despite herself.
Bertie was horrified anew at the prospect of feminine tears, which he was unequipped to handle even when he wasn't half-dressed in his private rooms. He started to reach for Zipporah, stopped himself, and dressed hastily and sloppily in vest and shirtsleeves so that he could offer her a comforting hug--keeping Ach in his line of sight as he did.
"May I...? I apologize... Please, let me..." Awkward though it was, Bertie managed to get her into an embrace, making himself as strong and reassuring as he knew how to be. "I'm so sorry," he murmured, patting her back. "It wasn't...I didn't realize, I'm sorry to have caused you...I'm very sorry."
He located a clean handkerchief and offered it up to her, still patting her shoulder with his stomach twisted in guilt. Hesitant yet, he ventured, "After...what happened, at the masquerade, I've taken some time to reflect on people who might take advantage of my...gifts? My energies. I..." He hesitated for a moment, but she'd said clearly enough that she knew who his demon lover was. "I spoke with Gabriel, to try to make sense of it, the nightmares and the...discomfort. I didn't know why it plagued my mind so, when speaking with ghosts never bothered me, and it shouldn't have hurt anything but my pride to swoon in a crowded ballroom, no matter the cause."
Bertie fidgeted a little, but forced himself to still, giving Zipporah some space but not moving too far away. "I told him I might write a poem, and he said if I brooded on it enough to do so, he should like to read it. When I did...it wasn't only about having something so personal taken from me, without my consent or knowledge. It was about the difference between having a friend I trusted, who I could give such a gift to with a glad heart, knowing it was needed and would aid another, and in having such taken without asking. About how grateful I was, to have a friend who offered the choice, and who took care to receive my agreement with each act."
That was perhaps too much detail, so Bertie moved on, hoping he was making some difference to Zipporah's evident distress. "When he received it, he came over to thank me, and we actually had quite a long talk. He was...not troubled, perhaps, but concerned, for how I might feel at being thought of as a meal. I told him I didn't at all, because he'd never treated me in such a way. And I told him...I told him that by offering his companionship, he fulfilled a need in me as well, and so we each gave something to one another, freely."
Bertie swallowed, silent for a brief moment, and then admitted, "I'm not sure if I'm helping at all. I wish I could reassure you. All I can tell you is that when I first asked him if I could still attend church, he told me that his people had only been called demons because...congress..." Bertie blushed, but soldiered on, "...is something that those in the past have feared, in the church. Or misunderstood. That it was only a name, but that he would do no harm to me, nor endanger my soul. More than I had already myself, anyway," Bertie finished quietly, looking down. "The church, I think, wouldn't look kindly on me even without knowing the nature of an...intimate friend."
“Psh,” Zipporah replied, gently. “The church is what it is. Your relationship with God is yours, whatever you choose to make of it. And I am fairly sure He does not mind about that sort of thing anyways.”
She fell into silence, then, chewing over what he’d said, and looked over at him. “He was so very angry when you fell. Angry and frightened. And he had always been quite… quite thoughtful and kind to me. I think… I think he seemed for to care for his friends a great deal, and I thought him a good man,” she added, frowning. “And the thought that it could all be a lie…” she shrugged, a little embarrassed now at the visceral response she’d had.
“I would not have thought that you would talk so about it,” she added. “About his nature. That he would be so disclosing.” She sighed. “It is… I shall have a great deal for to think over, and pray over too.”
Bertie's chest hurt a little, at Zipporah's description of how Gabriel had been affected when he'd swooned at the ball. He'd been disappointed that Lord Black hadn't been with him when he'd woken--he didn't know, now, how he could have been disappointed in the least by two such dear friends coming immediately to his aid.
"He has always been a friend to me," Bertie said quietly. "A better one than I am. More than that, I have never known him to be anything other than a gentleman, in thought and deed, as long as I have known him. He has never pressured me for time together, and everything between us has been given freely. When I took another lover and he might have feared an end to our relationship, he was only happy for me, and has remained a friend, and more. I understand why his nature might trouble you, but..." He hesitated for a moment, thinking through her perspective. "Perhaps it's like how you are with ghosts. Those that endanger others, you don't tolerate. Those who serve as friends, who are good souls...those cannot help their natures. All they can be is what they are, and show the very best of themselves. So I find it with Mr Allen."
He decided it was time for tea, and poured cups for each of them, pressing Zipporah's gently into her hand as he retook his seat beside her. "I told him once, I think, that he was the most noble man I knew. I hope, for your sake and his, that the answer you find in your prayers is renewed faith in him, to be so considerate and caring for those he cannot help but find sustenance in."
Bertie thought back over the conversation he'd had the day before, tangled up with Gabriel on this very loveseat. "It is difficult for him," he said after a moment. "What he must ask of others, to live. But I think, if you asked him, he would be honest with you about any concerns in your mind. He is an honourable man," Bertie promised solemnly. "And a fine friend. I could not wish better for either of you, as you have both been dear friends to me."
“Well,” Zipporah replied, tipping her chin his way. “I am glad for to know your thoughts, especially given how… how personal they are. And I am glad you are healing well, and that you are happy. It is… I suppose that I have much to learn of the world,” she said, quietly.
She grinned a little. “It is an amazing place, though, is it not? It can be frightening and dangerous and hard, full of the suffering, but at the same time, I have found it to be strange and wonderful, and with surprises in it too, so why should there not exist the possibility of an honorable demon?” She patted his knee. “Come now, Mr Eden, let us re-heat the soup. It is very good, even if you are not ill.”