angelic_gabe (angelic_gabe) wrote in shadowlands_ic, @ 2018-01-24 21:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | bertie eden, gabriel allen |
Who: Gabriel, Bertie
What: Gabriel comes calling after hearing about the disappearance of the Winged Sandals
Where: Bertie's rooms
When: 7 January, 1889 [slight backdate]
Rating: PG
Gabriel heard about the disappearance of the Winged Sandals slightly in advance of the papers -- he’d been keeping his eye on the Russians (and the dashing Captain Curtis as well), and one of the betting circles he frequented had been abuzz with rumors of it.
His first very first stop after hearing was to Bertie’s, with a box of sandwiches and an anxious expression, uncertain what he’d find. He had to admit to being a little anxious when his knock wasn’t answered right away, and very nearly considered whether he ought to call for the landlord to open it, but he could just as very well be out at a party, or at Zipporah’s or a hospital, or collapsed somewhere out in the cold…
He knocked again, a little more insistently.
Bertie had been sent home at midday from the Night Watch after a morning of distracted listlessness and chills. He didn't feel ill, per say, but there was a malaise lingering in his bones even after all Zipporah's care, a general sense of apathy that made it difficult to act. He wondered if it was a touch of what it felt like to be dead--to not have anything matter so urgently anymore.
He was slow to move when someone knocked on his door, slower still to uncurl himself from the blanket he'd been wrapped up in, but the manner of knocking suggested that whoever was on the other side would not be easily dissuaded from the action.
He was reassured, when he opened it, to see Gabriel, and not - just as an example - a dead woman wearing someone else's skin with a skull for a face. That was pleasant news.
The expression on Gabriel's face suggested he might have expected the same thing, in Bertie's place. Which further suggested he already knew about the events of the night before.
"Did Zipporah tell you?" Bertie hadn't been specific in his note, just mentioned that they needed to talk. "I didn't want to be too specific in writing, since..." He removed one of the hands holding him upright on the door and waved it in a little circle. Then he reconsidered whether he had actually been to post the mail, as he'd intended. He was fairly certain it might still be in his coat pocket. "I'm sorry," he said instead, vaguely confused. "I meant to send a note."
“I heard a rumor about the airship,” Gabriel replied, feeling a rather powerful mix of what could best be described as relief, worry, and anger all contending for his attention. Seeing as Bertie looked so out of sorts, he carefully maneuvered his way inside rather than waiting on an invitation, setting down the box of sandwiches on a small table by the front door before gently plucking Bertie from the door where he was currently clinging for purchase, and shutting it behind them both.
That being done, he sighed, and wrapped his arms around Bertie, pulling him close.
“I was worried about you,” he added, muffled, and he knew he ought to insist on seeing Bertie straight to bed, but he needed to take a minute to remind himself of Bertie’s being alive and comfortingly solid, and he felt his grip tighten as they stood there by the door.
Bertie felt perplexingly warm and cared-for, and wasn't sure how it had come about that so many people - so many good, marvelous people - seemed to worry over him as if it were well worth their time to do so. Thinking of it in such a way, he wondered if he ought to write Lord Black, just to keep him up to date. And perhaps warn him, somehow, that an angry necromancer might be in London with her baleful eye cast on one of (was he the only one? he didn't know--he ought to ask Matthew) Black Park's prospective pack members.
"I should have sent the note," Bertie apologized without removing himself or his arms from Gabriel's person, clutching him with even more relief and gratitude than he'd shown the blanket earlier on. "I'm sorry, I meant to, and then I came home out of habit without making a stop. I was going to tell you..."
Bertie came up short suddenly, blinking and then going tense and rigid in Gabriel's embrace. He pulled back only far enough to see Gabriel's face and asked, "What airship?"
White flowers all around, the smell of smoke, a sumptuous feast, dark wine. Bertie shook his head a little, trying to clear it.
When had he boarded an airship?
Gabriel paused. “The Russian airship,” he said, carefully, running his hands down Bertie’s arms, looking at him searchingly. “It… it disappeared. All hands gone. I thought… well… I thought it might be connected to you, to her, and I wanted to make certain you were alright.”
He frowned. “And I’m not wrong. Something did happen. Clearly. And you’ve been to Miss Bakst,” he said. “What… oh, I’m being all sorts of inconsiderate,” he said, “making you stand here. Come, get on into bed, and I’ll fetch some tea, and let you get your bearings. I could just…” he frowned. “I’m glad you went to see her,” he ended.
All hands gone. More than gone--Bertie had seen them, in the realm of the dead, or wherever they'd been, surrounded by ghosts and hollow-eyed men.
"Oh, God," Bertie said, the words sounding distant in his ears, and he'd have protested the bed if not for the feeling that the ground had just gone out from beneath him. He held onto Gabriel until it steadied, until his stomach ceased threatening to turn over and revisit his luncheon--or breakfast, since he hadn't eaten since.
"The couch, please," Bertie said faintly at last. He straightened up, trying to be less useless, less weak and pitiable than he'd proven himself thus far over the past day. "I'd like...we do need to talk."
He looked around the room, which wasn't in poor shape, and gathered the scraps of hospitality. If he let Gabriel's words truly sink in - words spoken in a language Bertie didn't understand, desperate hope in a dead man's eyes - he didn't know that he'd be able to manage even that much. "Would you like some tea?"
Gabriel steered them both over to the couch with a frown, swallowing his sense of utter helplessness. He was no healer -- he was, if anything, a detriment to Bertie’s health (although intimacy of that sort was the furthest thing from either of their minds at the moment), and his attempts to keep his lover safe had proven very nearly laughable. While he could hope this was truly the last of it, he knew far better.
“I’ll fetch the tea,” he said, firmly, depositing Bertie on the couch and kissing his temple. “You stay put, or I shall be very cross.”
He knew his way around Bertie’s small kitchenette well enough by now to get the tea going, and put the sandwiches on a tray, and added a few more shovels of coal to the fire and a blanket over Bertie’s shoulders before bringing the tray and mugs over.
It helped to do something, even something that was more of a gesture than anything truly useful, and if he kept moving, he could avoid the dread in his stomach and the slight tremble of anger in his fingers.
“There,” he said, sitting down next to Bertie and reaching for a mug, pressing it into his hands. “There,” he added, quietly, reaching an arm around him to rub at his shoulder, feeling a twist of guilt on seeing his friend so dreadfully pale.
Bertie leaned in to Gabriel's side, closing his eyes briefly while he worked up the courage to put the whole confusing episode into words. "They are lost," he said at last, very quietly, but any noise from outside was muted enough that he didn't need to raise his voice to be heard. "I saw them. I don't believe I was meant to, this time. They're still alive, I think," and oh, what a horrible thought, and Bertie hoped desperately that he might be wrong about it, "but they're...in the realm of the dead, if there is such a place."
Bertie cleared his throat and gained some level of volume. "Miss Bakst calls it another world, when she says I walk between them. I don't believe I did, not the way she meant it...until last night. Or if I have, I haven't remembered it." Bertie shuddered delicately, glad of the blanket and Gabriel's arm across his shoulders. "I do now.”
Gabriel frowned, and tightened his grip on Bertie. “You’re back now, though,” he said, firmly, resting his head against Bertie’s. “You’re back, and thank God for that. What did Miss Bakst say?” He asked. “What…” he sighed. “What does she think of all of this?”
Bertie swallowed. "She thinks I've come unmoored, like the ghosts," he answered, the words sounding as surreal and impossible as they'd felt when he first heard them, in Zipporah's foreign-tinged English. "That I'm wandering, now, in between this world and the realm of the dead, with nothing to hold my soul to my body. She's made an anchor for me," Bertie clarified, before Gabriel could draw in too much of a breath of alarm. "To hold me here, the way she did for Jamie. She thinks it might keep me from...drifting."
He shivered, not sure whether or not it was from the creeping, perpetual cold he felt all the way to his bones. "She said it was different this time," Bertie continued, remembering. "That my soul hadn't been stained, or damaged, that there were different energies."
Bertie managed to dredge up a small, tired smile. "And she warned me to mind myself around certain people with an interest in my energies," he added, because they both needed a moment of levity, a shared joke, however weak. "Not that I imagine it's much of a problem at the moment. I wouldn't even make much of a mouthful, at present."
Gabriel sighed, with a small quick smile. “Well,” he said, kissing Bertie’s cheek and wrapping his arm so they were a fraction closer, nestling his forehead against Bertie’s neck, “I shall have to restrain myself. I suppose I’ll manage somehow. You know I adore you regardless.”
“I am glad she’s managed to keep you here,” he added, “and that your soul remains delightfully unblemished.”
The rest was worrisome, beyond worrisome, but there was so little he could do about it, beyond…
Well.
He was planning on having a conversation with Biddie about Leah, he might as well add this to the stack.
Bertie stroked Gabriel's hair, finding the motion irrationally soothing. He didn't want to talk for the first few moments, but eventually he found his voice. "I think I know who...someone who might be involved," he admitted, so quietly it was only a murmur near Gabriel's ear. "A ghost. I saw her, in the vision. And she's troubled Miss Bakst before, in her home. So she must be adrift, as well."
Bertie shifted slightly, anxious, before forcing himself back to stillness to get the rest of it out. "I met her in the warehouse, after the fire. She told me she'd died there. I..." Bertie's voice had softened to a whisper. He bit his lip and swallowed before finishing, "I don't know what to believe anymore."
It all came back round to the fire.
Gabriel shut his eyes.
“Believe in this, for one,” he replied, quietly. “And your heart, which is so… so beautifully open and steers you true without fail, and the people who love you.” He sighed. “The rest can all sort itself out, and will, I have no doubt.”
“What can I do?” He asked, feeling more than a little useless. “What do you need the most, right here and now?”
Bertie wove his fingers through Gabriel's hair and squeezed him tighter in the embrace, feeling relieved and reassured in spite of how nothing had changed, really, apart from the fact that he had friends, people who did care for him, as Gabriel said, and he wasn't nearly as alone as he'd felt, in the hours between leaving Dex's house this morning and Gabriel's arrival here.
"This helps," Bertie assured him, with a smile lost against Gabriel's neck where they'd tucked themselves in against one another. "Truly. Miss Bakst told me much the same last night, of how lucky I was in my friends. How lucky we are to have each other," he impressed, drawing back just enough to see Gabriel's worn, worried, haunted face.
Bertie cupped his palms over Gabriel's pale cheeks, drawing his thumbs beneath hollow eyes. Gabriel looked bruised on the inside, somehow, with only the faintest smudges showing through the skin. He kissed Gabriel's forehead, unconsciously echoing the gesture Miss Bakst used on him in her healing, and only realizing it afterward.
Then he leaned back, urging Gabriel to lie against him on the couch where Bertie could close his eyes and feel safer, just for a moment. "Just be here with me, for a moment? Tell me how you are?" Not well, if Gabriel's looks were anything to go by, but Bertie wanted to hear him speak.
“I shall be better once this is sorted,” Gabriel replied, quietly, “but other than that…” he settled, resting against Bertie with a sigh. “I bought the theater for Cas,” he said, with a small smile. “It’s his now, lock stock and barrel, and I, for one, couldn’t be happier about it.” He ran his fingers lightly down Bertie’s arm. “If you haven’t been in a bit, I’m sure he’d love to see you again, you could catch a show,” he added, “he has a marvelous way of providing a bit of an escape from the world.”
Mention of Caspian reminded Bertie of case obligations that had been delayed by Christmas and the new year, and he resolved to seek Caspian out when he could. "That was generous of you. He must be very happy. And I'll do that--I've been meaning to speak with him, and should like to catch up."
Bertie wasn't sure whether or not he ought to tentatively mention Caspian's interest, and decided against it--he wouldn't want to hurt Gabriel, even indirectly, even if Gabriel knew and didn't mind. Squirming about slightly to get into his pocket, Bertie pulled out the tin ring that Zipporah had given him the previous evening to show Gabriel. "I understand I have you to thank for this...another gift. Miss Bakst has made it an anchor for me, to keep me here. To keep my soul from wandering."
He let it slide onto his finger, though he'd been carrying it out of sight earlier, not wanting to call anyone's attention to an unusual piece of jewelry. The string had been one thing, hidden beneath his cuff, but such a ring would be noted, and Bertie wasn't ready to answer questions.
"I believe it is sorted, as much as it can be," Bertie said quietly. "I'm protected again, and know now what to be watchful of, and Miss Bakst knows as well, and..." He paused briefly, because Dex didn't wish to be known when Gabriel was not, and Bertie had evaded confirming it outright, but given what he needed to ask today, it seemed pointless to pretend. "...Dex," he finished at last, which was confirmation itself, of a sort, to be so familiar. "Don't let it trouble you. There's nothing more to be done at present."
Gabriel looked down at the ring, and smiled a bit, running his fingers over Bertie’s knuckles. “Well,” he said, quietly, “that is… well. I am beyond glad she’s taken you on, and I’ll admit, it is…” he looked up at Bertie. “It is a small part to play in all of this, but it is rather lovely, to think of something of mine keeping you here.”
His expression shifted at mention of Dex a little surprised and pleased. “You’ve sorted it out, then?” He asked, a grin spreading across his face. “He’s come to his senses? He is a stubborn sort. I was hoping…” he paused, aware he was navigating through uncertain waters. “Has he?” He asked.
Bertie's face warmed, and for a moment he didn't know at all what to say. "I didn't know you knew," was what came out first, because Gabriel clearly knew not just that Bertie was Dex's lover, but that they'd also parted for a short time. Clearing his throat and trying to recover from that, he folded his fingers protectively over the ring and admitted, "I'm glad, as well. That it was given her by you."
The rest was rather more complicated to sort out, and Bertie felt altogether too stretched out for it, pulled like a candy chew. "I think...we're trying." Vacillating rather wildly between determination and hope when he was in Dex's company, and worry and despair when he wasn't, but at least there was hope, now. Bertie didn't know how much to say, or what, but Gabriel was a dear friend, along with anything else, and Bertie wanted to talk with him, and hear his advice.
"I thought it best to be honest," Bertie said after a moment to decide as much, shifting a little and then stilling, adjusting the circle of his arms around Gabriel. He fell silent for a brief moment again before saying, "He wants to know who you are. I told him I would ask. That it wasn't my secret to tell."
He nearly spoke of Dex not wanting to share, his reaction to Bertie's admission and the mention of women that had followed soon after, but held his tongue. One thing at a time would be quite enough.
“I could connect the dots well enough,” Gabriel replied, looking up. “I am glad to hear it. That you’re making an attempt.” He paused a little. “It would be a touch awkward, as I know the both of you, and I can’t imagine he’d be terribly pleased at me, but I can weather his glaring well enough. He’s a good sort, and knows my nature, and I can’t imagine it would harm our business together in the long run.”
He reached up to brush Bertie’s hair behind his ear. “I do understand the need to be honest with someone you care for,” he added, “and can’t find fault in it. Thank you, for asking me.”
Bertie sighed quietly, tempted to burrow into Gabriel's side and hide there, and trying to resist the impulse. "You know I care for you, as well," Bertie said, tilting his head into the touch instead. "And I wouldn't betray you knowingly. I know I speak often without thinking, but..." He bit his tongue, then finished quietly, determined, "I will try to protect you."
It was selfish to want to spend the hour here, being petted - he could admit the word for it - and curled up with another when Dex was so worried about him, but--and it took Bertie a moment to separate the feelings, the way he never could express aloud--it was different. Gabriel was, or was nearly, pack. As Matthew was...as Zipporah seemed to be becoming. He was a lover as well, but the tangle of want and emotion Dex seemed to produce in Bertie was something else, and separate itself from the idea of Dex one day becoming Bertie's pack, or its nearest kin.
Bertie sighed again, but he could smile at himself, this time, rueful and fond. "He's not happy," Bertie told Gabriel, a confidence and warning all in one. "I don't think he sees...distinctions...as I do. As I think you do." Bertie trailed his hand up and then down Gabriel's arm, coming to rest over Gabriel's own hand. More quietly, he added, "I think it might be different, for a..." He stopped short of another betrayal, though the word was on his tongue, and the situation difficult to explain without it. "For him," Bertie finished instead, inadequate.
“Ah,” Gabriel replied, his forehead wrinkling. “Well,” he said, “I would not care to… make things difficult for you, while you’re in the process of sorting things out.” He looked up at Bertie, evenly. “I did say, before,” he added, gently, “that I would be happy being your friend, regardless, and I did mean it. I’m not here just for the sex, you know.” His smile was swift, and soft. “Which isn’t to say I wouldn’t miss it, because I would.” He looked at Bertie’s hand, brushing his arm lightly, and that led to a bloom of sadness. “Is this…” he looked up at Bertie. “This isn’t your way of saying good-bye, is it?” He paused, and worked around the swirl of emotions to clarify, because it wasn’t particularly fair of him to make that leap. “Would what we are doing right now be considered an issue?” He asked, quietly, carefully.
"No," Bertie said at once, tightening his embrace as though Gabriel had threatened to leap away from him instead of simply asking a question. He wasn't ready to let go, which was perhaps a fitting summary of the entire situation. "No, I'm not saying goodbye, and no, it's not an issue for me. And if it is for Dex," Bertie added, softening, "then that is for he and I to work out. I've told him I won't...that I'll wait," he said diplomatically, colour touching his cheeks again, "until we've agreed on...whatever we decide," and he didn't know how to encompass it all, the question of whether or not he and Dex would be able to compromise, and where that left Gabriel, and what it would all mean.
"I know you said you didn't mind," Bertie added, smiling in spite of his unsettled emotions, because Gabriel was generous to a fault, as Dex was territorial, and Bertie's reactions to both of them had been to seek the same freedom with one and the same possessiveness with the other. "But I believe you have a stake in this as well, if a different one." Considering this an arrangement solely for nourishing Gabriel did him a great discredit, though, so Bertie amended softly, "Perhaps not so different."
He bent his head to kiss Gabriel's lips lightly, not nearly enough for Zipporah to scold him over, had she known of it. "If you don't feel it's wrong to stay, then I don't want you to go."
“Good,” Gabriel replied. “...Good.” He rested a hand over Bertie’s. “I realize I present a complication, and I would hate to be an impediment to your happiness,” he added, “but you will allow me to be a touch selfish.” He smiled. “And mercy, if you were to get married to a society lady, I’m sure she’d be frightfully scandalized if you were to even attempt conversation of that kind, and we’d either have to keep our distance altogether, or you’d have to keep even moments such as this from her awareness entirely. I would rather…” he brushed Bertie’s knuckles again. “I would rather be a part of the conversation than something to be hidden, or a source of shame.”
His smile grew a little wistful. “I tried, you know, with Victoria, and she did try her best in turn, but it was challenging, and there was only so much honesty she could manage. She told me once that ‘most society men are unfaithful, but they have the good sense to not tell their wives about it,’ and while she knew it was more of a necessity for me than most due to my nature, and that she was the one I married, the one I was committed to having a family with, that I would never bring shame to her by being indiscreet, that I loved her dearly, it was still something she struggled with mightily, and I can hardly blame her for it.”
Bertie listened quietly as Gabriel shared confidences, ones Bertie was honoured to hear. The hand in Gabriel's hair traced the shell of his ear with gentle fingers. He didn't know what would be appropriate to say in the face of such honesty and pain, but he was reminded of Gabriel saying he had a good heart, and so tried to follow where it led.
"I was thinking the same thing...that I didn't want to be a source of shame. Or for you to feel one. Or both of us, together." Granted, it was a different situation, but even so, Bertie refused to let himself colour their time together with any brush aside from friendship and affection.
"I suppose I've always thought I'd be faithful, when I married. It's different for me, though--you were faithful in every other way, mind and soul. I don't know that I'd manage that much."
If he married. It was something he'd always taken for granted, but now there was Dex, for however long that could last, and Black Park, and if he became one of the pack, it wouldn't be only his decision, or his parents'.
"You're a better person than I am," Bertie observed, rubbing his nose against Gabriel's. "Victoria was lucky to have you. And..." His gaze took in their position on the couch, and his own lack of energy for nearly anything besides this, turning a touch amused. "...You can hardly be more of a complication than I am, can you? I feel I seem to be nothing else, these days."
“Nonsense, on both counts,” Gabriel replied with a laugh. “You bring poetry into the world, and help those who would otherwise be utterly without voice, and I am a far better person from knowing you, I think.”
He exhaled, smiling a little as they nestled together. In another context, without Zipporah and Dex and Bertie’s exhaustion weighing heavily on one side of the scale, it would be all too easy for this sort of comfort to softly tip into something else -- he and Bertie had always been fairly seamless in that regard, their time together most often consisting of a friendly, comfortable back and forth of hands and mouths that blurred the lines between the platonic and intimate into something that was a delightful mixture of both, easy and sweet and playful -- and he wondered if Dex would consider it a threat to his claim if he ever saw it for what it was.
For now, however, platonic had to rule the day, and he kept his hands from wandering, and his mouth from kissing at Bertie’s neck.
“Honesty is a rare and wonderful thing, and whatever decision you both come to, it will be better for it, and I am glad you have such an opportunity. You most certainly deserve it.”