Who: Dex and Bertie What: Shopping which is code for breaking up I think :p When: Dec. 1888
“Thank you for coming with me.”
Bertie had been largely distracted since they’d arrived at the German Christmas Market, taking in all of the sights and sounds - and best yet, the smells - but he was happier about the company he was keeping, and wanted Dex to know it. Both of them were bundled up against the December cold in hats and coats, Bertie with his hands tucked deeply into his pockets to keep them from the chill.
It was snowing off and on, and there was a fine dusting on Dex’s broad shoulders, and on the brim of his hat. Bertie kept glancing over to see if any caught on his eyelashes, and smiled and looked away every time Dex caught him at it.
“It’s been so mad this year, I haven’t had much time for gifts. I should have planned earlier, I know, but time got away from me. I’ve never been very good at it, really. Do you have gifts for your son already chosen, or will you wait until the last minute, like I tend to do?”
“It’s my pleasure, really,” Dex had answered, taking his eyes from a toy that had caught his attention to look at Bertie. “Really, I needed to get out and do some shopping.” Plus, he didn’t mind spending time with Bertie.
“I don’t do anything last minute,” he replied with a small upward tilt of his lips. “If I don’t get to it in a timely manner then someone from the house will do it for me,” he explained. “I try to do all of my son’s shopping personally, add my own touch to it. He gave me a list a mile long this year along with wanting to take a trip abroad to New York,” he sighed. He wasn’t happy about the trip to New York and it showed. “I’ve done most of the shopping for what he wanted and now I’m looking for things he hasn’t asked for to surprise him with,” he smiled.
"Hopefully we'll find something here," Bertie replied, ever-optimistic. Curious but wary of treading on Dex's privacy, he asked tentatively, "Would it hurt you--or grieve you, to be so far from the Thames? Or would you feel it, still? Does your son have a...river of his own? Or will he choose one later, when he grows older? Is this too many questions? I can stop."
Immediately, Bertie shook his head and laughed at himself. "That's not true, I can't really. But you're welcome to tell me it's too personal. I don't want it to seem like I'm fishing for information about you. I just want to know more, about you, about your life. I find you endlessly fascinating." His crooked smile tried to pass off the comment as a joke, but his eyes were sincere, and a little too honest.
“I’m not tied to any body of water,” Dex said with a shake of his head. “And I don’t mind the questions. I’m not like a water nymph or sprite or anything like that. The River Thames has just been a part of my families lives for centuries and I chose to continue making it my home - it doesn’t bother me at all to be away other than maybe a little homesick,” he offered a smile. “I have siblings who have chosen to live apart and find their own lives elsewhere. And my son isn’t like me, he is of fire,” he said after a glance around to see if anyone was listening. He stepped closer to Bertie, brushing up against the man as a couple of women bustled by. “Pardon us,” he said with a bow of his head, though he made eye contact with the pretty blonde for a moment before they were gone. “Samuel’s reasons for going to New York is because he wishes to find his real family,” he said softly as he stepped away from Bertie to give him room.
"Oh." Bertie's reply was soft and subdued, understanding at once why such a quest would cause Dex pain, or at the least bring about conflicted feelings. He glanced belatedly at the women who'd passed to take note of them, without too much worry--it was either innocent, or they were a variety of supernatural Bertie couldn't smell, which was why Dex had noted them and probably scent-marked Bertie to keep him from ending up a meal.
This particular Christmas Market was old, and many of the vendors and patrons even older--Bertie might have been one of the few humans, for all he knew, although he suspected the ignorant human visitors outnumbered the supernatural ones.
"I'm sure it isn't because he doesn't love you, or wants to leave you," Bertie said just as quietly, trusting that Dex's hearing was sharp enough to keep their conversation private. "He may just have questions that he needs to have answered, in order to put them behind him. People who are like him, who can explain some things, because there are so few who could. He'll still be your son. He'll always be your son."
Perhaps that wasn't what Dex was worried about, though. Bertie cast another concerned glance up at him, hoping he wasn't spilling salt onto a wound. "Do you think they'll want to keep him? Will there be...problems, for you, if they do?"
A war between dragons over a child sounded easily as destructive as anything two werewolf packs could get into over territory, and Bertie had read files about those disputes. He didn't like to think of Dex being caught up in something so dangerous, and he knew Dex would do anything for his son.
“I think…” Dex paused and sighed. He took his hat from his head and thumped it a couple of times to knock the snow from it. “I think that he will be disappointed when he finds nothing. We’ve looked. I’ve looked. We are so rare that finding others like us would be fantastic. I would have helped them,” he said sadly. “But I think that they are either dead, or left him at the orphanage for another reason. There is no trace of them. And if we did find them...if they were good people and left him because of no other choice, I’d give him back though it would kill me. But if they were horrible people…” he trailed off and shook his head. He would ruin them in any way possible.
“How are your nightmares? Still having them?”
"Oh," Bertie said again, flushing and a little nervous. "Well. Yes...that is, well." He reached up to run a hand through his hair, nearly knocked off the hat he'd forgotten he was wearing, and cleared his throat. "It seems that I was used, without my knowledge, to power a necromancy spell intended to summon a ghost and make it visible to those who can't normally see such things. For reasons I'm not even sure I can express, save that I have this...gift, and that makes me useful to others."
He pulled back the sleeve of his coat to reveal the red string knotted around his wrist. "I've been to see a witch, who removed some of the...stain on my soul, she called it, and gave me this to keep me safe while I healed. So yes, I am still having nightmares, but they're...better? Less filled with ghosts," Bertie finished, thinking that might cover it all, without getting into any details that might put Gabriel at risk.
He glanced apprehensively at Dex, aware this was quite a lot to take in, and ventured, "I hope that doesn't...I mean, I hope you don't feel differently, now, about being in my company. I do promise you and your son were never in harm's way, so far as I know, and there's much less to worry about now. I should have told you earlier, only..." He exhaled. "I suppose I'm still taking it in. I should have, by now, but it still feels...odd."
Dex wasn’t sure if the flush on Bertie’s cheeks was from the question he’d asked or if it were the cold. Either way, he felt the need to want to wrap his arm around the man’s shoulder and hold him close, to either protect him from those that wished to harm him or the cold. Maybe both. But he knew that he could not. Bertie was, indeed, a man. A man that had come to mean a great deal to Dex, but regardless still a man. He could not offer that with what he would offer a woman to Bertie and for the first time that he could remember, that social rule upset him.
Instead he focused on the string tied around Bertie’s wrist and frown at the knowledge that he had been used to bring a ghost into being. “I am happy to hear that you have received help and that the nightmares are getting better,” he said with a nod of his head. “It does disturb me that someone did this purposefully, but I am not worried about myself but for my son I am. If you say there is no danger, then I believe you,” he said with a small nod of his head. “I think what bothers me the most on all of it is that at this moment I’m powerless to…” he paused pushed his hands deep into the pockets of his coat. “I’m powerless to comfort you,” he said quietly. “And I don’t like that feeling.”
Bertie's gaze lingered for longer than it should on the planes of Dex's face, somber and strong. "You're wrong," he said softly. "You comfort me more than you know, and I take great reassurance from your care." He cleared his throat and looked down, tugging his sleeve back over the string. "I can stay away," he offered. "Until Miss Bakst is certain it's completely safe. I wouldn't want to risk your son for anything, even if we do believe no harm could come from it."
He bit his lip, torn between changing to a lighter subject of innocent Christmas gifts, or taking advantage of the serious tone of their conversation to make another confession. In the end, he chose the latter.
"There's something I wanted to tell you," he offered, hesitant. "It's...for me, it's very good news, but I don't know how you'll take it. I didn't want you to find out later, or from somewhere else."
Bertie glanced at Dex again, and then away, ducking his head and trying not to give in to the proud smile that always threatened when he thought of the conversation with Lord Black in the park. "I've petitioned to become a member of a werewolf pack. Whether I would become one in full isn't certain, even if I'm accepted, but either way...I wasn't certain whether it would change anything, for you. If I weren't a lone human, but one who...belonged somewhere."
Bertie wondered if Dex knew just how much Dex had filled that need to belong, in the absence of a pack. With Dex, he could pretend to belong somewhere, to someone, for as long as their time together lasted. But that time always came to an end, as it must, and Bertie would be alone again. He wondered if Dex felt the same way, whenever Bertie left him after their lovemaking.
His voice was low, almost out of hearing, when he said, "I hope you know that I do feel as though I belong, with you. But I can't..." He chewed on his lip again, searching for the right words to express himself. "I can't comfort you either, as I wish I could. I can't offer you everything I want to, freely and openly. It's...it's difficult, not to be able to show you that consideration. I wish..."
But that was foolish, and Bertie wasn't quite so young and foolish as he had been once, during those gilded Cambridge days with Mal. Wishing would amount to nothing, and the reality was that all of Bertie's passion and depth of feeling would only bring Dex to ruin, if he showed it openly. He sighed quietly, and leaned slightly to the side as they passed a chestnut vendor, so that his arm brushed Dex's and the backs of their gloves grazed one another. It was the most he could do, and even that was taking a chance. Bertie could afford to be careless, but Dex had a son to think of.
“You’re going to become a part of Lord Black’s pack?” Dex asked, though it was a rhetorical question; he had heard the young man’s words. It was quite a surprise to him and it only proved to him that perhaps he didn’t quite know Bertie as well as he wished. He lifted a gloved hand and scratched at his chin. “Why would you want that? Is being a werewolf something that you’ve always wanted?” He didn’t answer on whether that changed things, because he didn’t know the answer. He knew Lord Black, of course, as they were on the council together, but he had never bothered with anyone of his pack, for reasons that if things went wrong it would put stress on their relationship. If Bertie because a part of the pack, he would have to break his own rules or stop seeing the man all together. At least Bertie had told him instead of him finding out at a later time from someone else, at least he had time to digest the information.
“That things were different?” He looked away from Bertie and shook his head. “I understand.” It felt good to know that Bertie felt something towards him, though it was overshadowed by the news of him joining a wolf pack. They couldn’t act on what they felt, it could ruin them both and he did have a son to think of. Samuel knew nothing of his sexual life and he wished to keep it that way. Yes, he wished that things were different and it seemed as their trysts would soon come to an end, as all trysts should. He had just wished that things would go a little longer with Bertie, but if feelings were evolving…
A part of him wanted to say ‘fuck the world’ and do as he wished and kiss Bertie right there on the street. Especially when Bertie maneuvered it to where they would brush against one another as they passed a vendor. But he couldn’t. Perhaps he needed to stop sleeping with men and find a good woman to warm his bed.
"Not always." Bertie swallowed, trying not to worry at the way Dex seemed to have pulled away at his news, rather than becoming excited about it. He didn't think there was any bad blood between werewolves and dragons, but perhaps he was wrong about that. He should have asked.
Too late now.
"The first time I went to Black Park, I felt as though I'd come home. The pack, the wolves, they all...it felt right. I didn't think I'd have a chance to be among them again, but..." Bertie bit his lip briefly. "Do you remember when I said...when I asked if you thought it might be possible for someone to be different on the inside than they were on the outside? That's what it feels like, sometimes, for me. Like I'm already one of them, only I'm still human."
And likely to stay that way, at least for the foreseeable future. "I don't know if I'll ever turn," Bertie admitted quietly, hunching over a little and burying his hands in his coat pockets. "We don't know...I might lose my gift, if I do, and I have value to the pack while I have it, not to mention the Night Watch, and I can...I'm helping people, ghosts, as I am now. There's good I can do, and I wouldn't want to lose that. But I don't know..."
He huffed out a sigh, exasperated at himself for getting twisted up over something that was still so far off. "I don't even know that the pack will accept me," he confessed, subdued. "They all have to agree, even the ones that might not like me. They'll probably think I'm weak, because I am, so they might not... It's not all in the alpha's hands. So this might not come to anything."
Oh, but how he hoped it did. It was still a fierce, sharp hope that rose inside him every time he thought about it.
Dex was quiet as he listened to Bertie. He felt a tug at his heart, the one that his son always commented was covered in ice. If that were the case then it had apparently thawed some when it came to Bertie. “We all wish to belong,” he murmured quietly. “Want a home. I hadn’t expected that you would find yours with a wolf pack,” he rubbed a gloved finger at his eyebrow. “Lord Black’s pack will be good for you, Lucien is a very good alpha,” he nodded slowly. “Loyal to his pack and good to them all,” he rambled out. What else was he to say? “If it is where you feel you belong, then you should do it. And as for needing the pack vote, if Lucien has made it clear what he wants I would feel as if the majority of the rest of the pack would follow with his vote. You may not think it, but you are already in,” he gave a small smile.
Bertie tried not to let his heart leap at the confidence in Dex's statement, but it was hard not to wish that were true. He still couldn't tell yet, however, what Dex thought of the news, and that couldn't be a good sign. Dex was difficult to read, but even so Bertie didn't think he was imagining the...disappointment? detachment? in Dex's manner. He wished they were alone, so that he could reach out and touch, but he didn't have that choice.
"You haven't said whether or not it would change anything, for you," Bertie pointed out softly, looking sideways up at Dex as he watched for a reaction.
Dex took in a breath and then let it out. As he did so, the snow swirled around them in a small tornado like way before it he forced it to cut across the street causing small chaos in its wake. Snow was, after all, just frozen rain was it not? It was more difficult to control that than actual bodies of water, but it was doable.
“I haven’t said because I am unsure,” he said honestly. “I have rules. I never mix business with pleasure and I don’t mix with anyone from the House,” he said, meaning the House of Shadows. “On top of that, Lucien and I are friends and I would not want to cause any strife between he and I if something were to go wrong between you and I,” he explained. “I’ve never been anything more than friendly with his pack and if you join…” he sighed and shook his head. “I like you, Bertie. It’s been a long while for me to find someone that I can open up with so easily, but I also know that what we have can not last,” he said sadly. “I don’t know how I feel about anything at this point.”
Bertie opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Anything he could think to say felt inadequate, and he didn't even know what he could offer. Friendship? An apology? A pledge of faithfulness? None of those quite struck the heart of the matter, which Bertie thought might be in part because neither of them knew what the heart of it was. Or if there was a heart--if Dex's sad, resigned cannot last meant there was nothing for Bertie to hold onto.
There had to be. He couldn't call himself kin to a werewolf and then back down without fighting to defend something he held dear. Even if they'd only known one another for a few months, Dex still counted in that regard.
"Why can't it last?" Bertie asked, low-voiced and fiercely determined. "Because of the pack? Or because...?" Because there was no future for either of them with each other, no public acknowledgement, no hope. Bertie shoved that thought away and pressed on. "You and I are nothing to do with that. If you want..." Bertie swallowed, and pushed on, "Anything you want, I want you to have. Even if it's only...only friendship, I wouldn't turn away from you. And if it's more than that..."
It was so difficult to make promises he couldn't keep. For Dex, would Bertie's life pass in an eyeblink? If he turned later in life, would that make any difference, or only tear Bertie's loyalties in two?
"...I want that too," Bertie finished, holding firm. "You know how I feel. Anything you want from me, if I can give it, it's yours."
“Because what we have is taboo,” Dex said simply. “I can not even introduce you to my son as a romantic interest because he would not understand. These people,” he spread his arm out to gesture around them. “They would not understand. We could be stoned, something I could survive but you might not. They may make an example from us,” he furrowed his brows. “Same-sex relationships, no one but people like us understands.” Again the snow swirled around them in a manner that would protect their words from being heard by others if they were to listen. “I’ve grown rather fond of you, Bertie. Much to my own dismay as I generally keep feelings out of it, but I’ve not been able to help myself. When you join the pack, it would be easy to break my rules for you. But my question would be is that would it all be worth it? We can’t be in public like...them,” he pointed to a young man and women, arms linked and adoring looks on their faces, a simple kiss to a cheek…
He took a breath and let it out slowly. His heart hurt and he wasn’t sure how to make it stop. “You can not give me what I want,” he then said slowly, looking at Bertie. “Because I would want what they have,” he gestured to the young couple again. “And it is entirely not fair. I’m a dragon, I live for several centuries and I could tell humans to love who you want because their lives are so short and it should not matter, but I am tied from doing so. “You should be with the pack,” he then said. “If you can’t be with me, if we can’t be together, then you should be with a group of people where you feel at home with.”
Bertie blinked melting snow from his eyes and looked away. He could pretend to be looking at the couple Dex had pointed out to him, but really he just needed to break away from the implacable resolve in Dex's gaze as he explained why feelings weren't worth the risk. It was Mal all over again, although at least Dex had the decency not to explain that he was breaking things off because he was going to marry.
You can not give me what I want. There was very little Bertie could say in answer to that.
He decided not to even try. It would only hurt more if he let it, and he already felt bruised, the more so for it being so unexpected. He'd known there were restrictions on what they could express, could be to one another, but he'd also thought they would find a way to work within those limitations, as much as they could. This felt like an ending, a finality Bertie didn't want to acknowledge.
"I need to buy a gift for a witch," Bertie said into the snow, without turning back to Dex. He'd wanted to ask what Dex thought of his idea for a gift for the pack, but he couldn't bring them up again now. "Do you know what they might need or want? I don't know very much about witches, as far as traditional tools. I imagine most of it is passed down, things like cauldrons and a mortar and pestle."
If he didn't acknowledge it, then this conversation couldn't be over. And neither could the suddenly-fragile hope that Bertie would find himself in Dex's arms again.
The complete change in the conversation had Dex, once again, finding himself taken off guard. He frowned and watched Bertie and wished like hell that he could take the man in his arms and sooth him. He understood why Bertie was changing the subject, but Dex wasn’t sure he wanted to leave it as it were.
“Bertie…” he said softly, the single word dripping with sadness. Then, without giving Bertie a chance to fight him, he pushed the man into an alley and going further to the back where it was safe enough, he constructed a wall of foggy ice and snow to block any one passing by from seeing them. It was a risk, but if he were lucky no one would notice it way back in the back. “Forgive me,” he asked earnestly of Bertie. “We can’t let this conversation just go like that and I believe it’s time sensitive and should be dealt with now,” he explained.
“I care about you, Bertie. Deeply. Enough so that knowing that you are hurting right now because of what I said hurts me, too,” he frowned again. “I don’t know how to navigate what I feel for you, it’s not something I’ve felt before, and because…” he paused and shook his head. “When I finally grew up, lost my father and found myself the lone dragon here, I decided that it was time to follow the rules. I had to keep myself safe and then for my son as well. I want you,” he whispered the last three words. “I want to make things work, but I don’t...I don’t know how.”
Bertie took a breath of air cold enough to make his chest ache, and then forced himself to stop wallowing in self-pity and be reasonable. It was difficult to set personal feelings aside, but there was nothing new or unjust in what Dex had said. Bertie was the one asking for more than Dex could safely give.
"I understand," he said softly, looking down at his gloves while he sorted out what he wanted to say and what he really shouldn't. "You're right. It's not fair to ask so much of you, and you have a son, and a life, and I've put both of you at risk. I can't give you what you truly want, and you...you deserve to be happy. Your son deserves a mother. I hope you find one for him. I hope...meeting you has been...I care about you, as well," Bertie finished inadequately, looking up into Dex's eyes. "Enough that I should want what's best for you, even if...even if I might want things to be different."
He glanced at the mouth of the alley, but no one had reason to take note of them, and Dex had masked them well. Meeting Dex's steady gaze again, Bertie swallowed and said uncertainly, "You've opened my eyes to many new things, and I value our talks, and all you've shared with me. I hope...I hope we can still be friends."
Dex brought a hand up to rub at his chest. His heart hurt worse than it ever had before and he was finding himself powerless to fix what was now broken between the two. This was supposed to be an innocent trip of Christmas shopping, but they seemed to be finding their way into ending what they had between them.
“It’s not fair of me to ask so much of you,” he tossed back, his voice soft. “I don’t think I entirely understand what is happening now. “But please know that you make me extremely happy,” he said, his brows furrowing. “We will always be friends,” he lifted a gloved hand and cupped Bertie’s cheek. Maybe this was for the best. He was becoming too close to the man and if they continued on it could be disastrous. “I’m sorry, I don’t know how to rewind all of this, to start over.”
Bertie didn't know either, but the knowledge that Dex might want to made his heart skip in sudden hope. He tried not to read too much into it, because wanting to change something didn't mean it was possible, and they'd already established that a relationship between them didn't have anywhere to go.
"Would you want to?" Bertie asked softly, searching Dex's eyes. "If we did rewind the day--would it be worth it, to take another path? Or would we only end up here again, agreeing it's for the best that I stay out of your life?"
There was friendship, of course, which Bertie would take gladly, but he'd been down that road before, and seen easy conversation with a lover turn into awkward silence and stilted pleasantries that ached on both sides.
"You don't ask anything of me that I'm not willing to give," Bertie added, feeling it needed to be said, before Dex became tangled up in nobility. "You never have. Nothing that I haven't wanted to give, with all my heart. I know this is new, but..." He shook his head very slightly, taking care not to dislodge Dex's gentle hand. "I don't have any regrets. If we did rewind, I wouldn't want to take any of it away."
“I would hope that if we could rewind the day, that we would skip this conversation and go merrily on our way, comfortable in the relationship that we have,” Dex answered. He would much go back to fifteen minutes ago where everything was easy and they were happy. How chilling it was that within those fifteen minutes that everything had gone wrong. “I won’t agree that you not being in my life is the best thing,” he then said. But he understood the question, at some point they would always end up here questioning it all.
“No matter what we do, we will always end up here, won’t we?” Dex asked, dropping his hand from Bertie’s cheek. “I’m sorry.” It was all he could say. What was he to do?
That last apology felt terribly final, and Bertie knew a closing couplet when he heard one. He tried to tell himself that it was better they'd decided this now than later, but he wasn't ready for that consolation just yet.
They'd only just arrived, and now faced a day of painful conversation if they stayed in each other's company. Part of Bertie insisted that he would take whatever he could get, but remaining together wouldn't be kind to either of them.
He cleared his throat to be certain his voice would steady, and glanced down at the snow underfoot. "I need to find some charms, for the pack," he told Dex, giving him an easy escape. "It will be tedious running around, and I expect it will take some time. I was going to do it later in the day, but I may as well start now. You can enjoy the market."
Dex winched, realizing this was the end. He needed to let Bertie go, that their day out together was over. He nodded his head, unable to say anything over the lump in his throat. A barely lifted a hand and had the ice wall vaporizing to where it was just steam - it would cloak them and keep prying eyes from noticing what had just happened. “Go,” he croaked and stepped into a shadow. “I’ll follow out in a moment…” he looked at Bertie and tried to give a smile. “We’ll talk soon…” because if they couldn’t be romantic, he still wanted the friendship.