Who: Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindelwald Where: Albus's bungalow When: Friday What: It wasn't that Albus had been avoiding the issue. Status: Incomplete
Albus had simply found himself incredibly preoccupied with anything and everything that might keep him out of his home. He felt entirely too bandied about, too strung out, and too susceptible to the sway of both his far and more recent past. It had been a mistake, he knew, that day at Gellert's shop. One he shouldn't repeat, regardless of how wisps of Gellert's gasping breath and a lingering heat fluttered at the tempo of his idle thoughts. And sometimes more than idle. He should have known better to have invested too much hope in the idea that this luggage-induced affliction would be so efficiently discarded.
No matter how much he wished to, he supposed he could not simply ignore Gellert. And for all the lessons he'd learned, he still hadn't quite managed to sort out how it was that Gellert could convince him of the harmlessness of certain things. A glass of firewhiskey, for instance.
Surely, this would be fine. He'd gotten much better, he liked to think, about drinking in general. Albus drank, of course-- everybody drank wine or brandy or gin or something. However, Albus only really ever did so socially, or during and after dinner. On the few times either Elphias or Gellert had ever taken him out with the intention of drinking recreationally, Albus's true inability to gauge what drinking moderately looked like shone through with staggering clarity. Nevertheless, Albus told himself that if he was attentive enough, he could get through this without too much issue.
His eyes lingered on the somewhat inelegant glass in his hand. It was terribly peculiar; a good portion of his attention had been devoted to avoiding looking at Gellert since he'd arrived.
"You know, the practice of getting embarrassingly intoxicated for one's birthday isn't exactly a tradition the British are terribly beholden to," he mentioned with a brief glance, still hoping to dispel that particular expectation in Gellert's mind. Not to mention, getting drunk with Gellert was a completely unacceptable option. He scarcely trusted himself sober. For the third time, Albus had to pull his gaze from the artful slope of Gellert's neck. And every bit the fool, for all his cleverness, Albus's idle hands fell prey to the delusion that lifting his glass to his mouth once again would somehow prove a productive measure.