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Fred forgives Gabriel, as he always forgives him. It's not in his nature to hold on to whatever unfavourable feelings he harbours for Gabriel: the betrayal and the disappointment and the animosity.
All it takes is a smile from Gabriel, dark eyes glittering with mischief and something that could be affection, a brief, hard hug and the rasp of stubble against Fred's cheek as Gabriel presses a dry kiss there, and Fred finds himself almost physically unable to carry his grudge no matter how much he wants to. And how he wants to!
He gets drunks and stares morosely into the candlelight, watching it flicker orange and yellow, burning tiny specks of dusts in the air. The others let him be, assuming that he's mourning Lizzie. He isn't, not tonight. Tonight, he's mourning his freedom, he's mourning the man he was before Gabriel stepped into his life and drew him in like a moth to the flame, burning him and then having him come back for more again and again.
The uncomfortable, ugly truth is that he needs Gabriel more than he hates him.
It's hard to reconcile himself with the idea. Through the distorted air surrounding the candle, he watches Gabriel laugh at something Morris has said, and he wishes he could hold on to the flash of loathing he feels at Gabriel's happiness. If only it weren't as easily matched by the stab of longing that makes his stomach clench, makes him want to go over and join the others.
He downs his drink and pours another, until his throat burns and his eyes water. In his blurred vision, all he sees is Gabriel. Even when he squeezes his eyes shut as tightly as his strength allows, when he makes himself blind to the world around him, the image of Gabriel stays with him and haunts him.
* * *
He wakes in one of Johnny's guest bedrooms, fully clothed and with a heavy head. The world is too bright and too colourful and too real, the crisp white of the fresh linens that crumple around him stinging his eyes.
The lingering effects of last night's stupor render his movements slow and sluggish as he crawls out of bed at last and checks himself in the mirror. He looks tired and pale like a haunted man, his eyes bloodshot, his hair an unruly mess, his clothes crinkled appallingly. There's very little he can do to improve his appearance before he steps out of the privacy of the guest room and faces the world. Fortunately for him, the world – for now – consists solely of Johnny, engrossed in today's morning paper.
At Fred's entrance, he looks up and smiles. "Fred! There you are."
The meaningless small talk that follows lulls him into false security that makes him feel like someone pulled the ground from under his feet when Johnny suddenly says, "We're all worried about you, Fred. I know you… cared for Lizzie. Are you all right?"
Johnny puts his hand on top of his, concern written all over his face. Fred could confide in him now, and he knows Johnny would listen and not judge. Well, not much, anyway. But what good would it do? It's not like Johnny can help.
Johnny will tell him that all he needs to do is find a good woman, fall in love and marry her, and it'll all go away. Except... Fred doesn't think it ever will. Once, he believed marrying Lizzie would have been the answer to all his sorrows, but he knows now – maybe he always knew – that he only fell in love with Lizzie because she belonged to Gabriel.
It's never been about Lizzie, and the knowledge of this makes Fred hate himself even more than he ever hated Gabriel.
"I'm fine, Johnny," he says, and puts a smile on his face that he hopes Johnny will believe is genuine. "Really, there's no need to worry about me."
Johnny nods and smiles and offers him tea, and Effie joins them, and Fred breathes a quiet sigh of relief as the discussion is put aside in favour of lighter topics of conversation.
* * *
Another night in the tavern. Fred is not quite drunk, not yet, but only because he doesn't trust himself around Gabriel when he's inebriated, and Gabriel seems to be set on not letting him have any solitude tonight.
It's a double-edged knife, because while he might be reluctant to get drunk around Gabriel, he cannot stomach the man's presence while being sober either. Already the alcohol is loosening his tongue, making him spill out truths he's always kept to himself, even back when he had vowed to always speak whatever black, ugly truths he had to say, before one of those truths set in a motion a chain of events that killed Lizzie.
"I wish I'd never met you," he hears himself say, and waits for the outrage a statement like this will surely evoke.
"I know."
Gabriel's soft reply is somewhere between matter-of-fact and resigned. If there was anger, Fred knew how to deal with it. He could, at last, hurl all his reasons for hating Gabriel at the other man. But what good does it do when Gabriel already knows it all?
"I wish I could just walk away," he adds instead, a little more viciously now, and the feeling behind it makes him choke. He laughs a bitter, nervous little laugh and digs his thumbs painfully into his forehead. "And God knows I've tried!"
"I know," Gabriel repeats. His face is half-hidden in the shadows. For a moment, he seems gloomy, almost sad, but when he turns to Fred, a blinding grin stretches his lips. "I'm glad you can't."
Fred is offended and touched all at once. Before he knew Gabriel, he didn't know it was possible to hate and love someone in equal measure, and now everything's a tangled mess.
He motions for the barmaid to order another drink, but Gabriel easily diverts her attention to him, then pays up and sends her away. The wench doesn't even appear to notice Fred slumping over the table, too busy eyeing Gabriel with sultry eyes and promising smiles, ignoring Fred in favour of his charismatic companion. Story of his life, he thinks wryly.
"Come on," Gabriel says. "Let's get you home, my friend."
His smile is kind and when he leans in and rests his forehead against the side of Fred's, the protest that he's not too drunk to take care of himself dies on Fred's tongue. Let Gabriel fuss over him, for once.
The weight of Gabriel's arm around his shoulders, hoisting him up and steadying him, is reassuring. Fred lets Gabriel drag him along without complaint, and if he makes himself a little heavier, leaning on Gabriel's body a little more than he needs to, if he breathes in a little more deeply so that underneath the fresh, cold night air, he can smell the warm, musky scent of the other man... well, no one will ever know.
They stumble into Gabriel's house, and for a moment, all Fred can think of is the last time they were here together. Before his eyes, he can see the phantom shadows of himself and Gabriel, huddled together on the floor with Lizzie's parting letter between them.
He must have been staring into empty space, because Gabriel shakes him hard, twice, and the memories fade away until all Fred sees are the dark floorboards, empty save for sheets with drawings and paint splatters scattered everywhere.
"Hey. Stay with me," Gabriel says.
Fred blinks, focusing on the man standing before him. Gabriel's right in front of him, too close, and his hands are firmly set on Fred's shoulders.
"I'm with you." It's meant to be reassurance, dismissal, nothing but an affirmative reply to Gabriel's command, but when the words come out of his mouth, it's so much more. There's promise in those words, an odd kind of reverence Fred wishes he could take back. And Gabriel looks at him – really looks at him, for what seems like the first time.
He's sober enough to recognize the frightening intensity of Gabriel's stare and yet drunk enough not to be scared off. The distance between them is entirely too easy to breach – Gabriel, after all, never cared much for personal space and proper distance – and then it's gone altogether. Fred's mouth is on Gabriel's, like it had been a dozen times before and yet unlike anything they've ever shared. Gabriel's kisses were always playful – hard, fast, friendly smacks of lips against cheek or lips, unpredictable and gone too fast for Fred to decide whether he liked or hated it.
This... this is different. It's awkward and punishing and rushed, and for a long, torturous moment, Gabriel is terrifyingly still against him. Fred expects the cruel shove of being pushed away and braces himself for the impact of a fist. But then the mouth under his comes alive and Gabriel kisses back, and it turns into a different kind of frantic. Gabriel takes over the kiss as he has taken over everything else in Fred's life; his hand slides around the nape of Fred's neck, and his mouth – that wonderful, terrible mouth that has told so many lies and sweet nothings – is hot and hard against his, laying him open, demanding and conquering and consuming. All Fred can do is open his lips and lean into the unyielding touch that's holding him in place (like he'd try to get away!) and let Gabriel have it all.
The kiss grows a little softer as it ends, the vicious onslaught turning into gentle, lingering pressure, and Fred finds himself hungrily following Gabriel's mouth when he draws back. A quiet, embarrassing little sound of protest escapes him that makes Gabriel chuckle and Fred flush crimson in response.
When Gabriel reaches out, thumb tracing Fred's kiss-bruised lower lip, his expression is somewhere between fond and predatory.
"Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred, Fred..." He smiles a wicked, lopsided grin. "My sweet little Fred. I'm going to enjoy despoiling you!"
Fred wants to protest that he's hardly a blushing, innocent virgin, that it was he who initiated the kiss in the first place, that he's been with women before, that if anyone it was Annie Miller who despoiled him. But then Gabriel ducks his head to kiss him again, one of his hands reaching down between them to undo the fastenings of Fred's breeches, and Fred can't remember what he was going to say.
* * *
"I wrote a poem about you once," Gabriel tells him, apropos of nothing, as if he hadn't spent the last two hours flirting with the barmaid.
Fred's lip curls in disdain. He's heard Gabriel read his verses to girls, telling them he wrote the words just for them, tweaking details like the colour of their hair or eyes to make it fit whoever he's talking to. Does he really think Fred is stupid enough to swoon over a poem that was written for Lizzie, or Fanny, or Annie, or Jane, or whoever the obsession du jour was when Gabriel composed it?
But Gabriel, for once, surprises him. "I burnt it the next morning," he continues, and he almost looks as if he regrets mentioning it at all.
Perhaps it's really the truth, Fred thinks. And even if it isn't, he's curious enough to treat it as such. "Why?"
Gabriel shrugs as if it doesn't matter, but the uncomfortable expression that befalls his features and the way he won't meet Fred's eyes belie the nonchalance of the gesture. "I didn't want anybody to read it."
Fred wonders what to do with that information, and before he can think of a reply, the window of opportunity closes as James and Johnny join them. In an instant, Gabriel's whole demeanour changes, all traces of unease immediately gone as if someone had wiped them away, and Fred begins to realize that he will never full understand Gabriel.
* * *
He doesn't know whether to be disappointed or grateful that nothing seems to have changed. Gabriel never mentions that night, and sometimes, in his darkest thoughts, Fred wonders if he had maybe imagined it all, the feverish, vivid fantasy of a drunken man. He would almost believe it, if there wasn't a set of finger-shaped bruises colouring his hip that take weeks to fade and hurt in a way that makes him crave more whenever he presses his fingers against them.
And he remembers. At the most inopportune moments, he remembers, the memories leaving him dizzy: Gabriel smiles a wolfish smile and Fred remembers the feel of those teeth marking his skin. Gabriel absent-mindedly brushes his hair out of his face and Fred remembers sliding his hands through those dark, soft locks. Gabriel kisses one of his whores or carelessly changes his clothes in front of him, and the flashes of memory make Fred almost sick with want.
He swallows it down, ignores it, shoves it aside, locks it safely away in a far corner of his mind.
Their relationship has reverted to the way it always was. He's sweet, gullible, reliable Fred once again. He rolls his eyes and laughs when Gabriel throws an arm around his shoulder and tells them of his latest muses and conquests. He gets upset when Gabriel does something unforgivable, and he swears that this time, he's through with him. He forgives him. He forgives him every time. It's an endless cycle of friendship and need and anger, what passes for normalcy between them.
But sometimes, he catches Gabriel's eyes and there's something in his gaze: something indefinable and dangerous and hungry and promising, and he knows that it's only a matter of time.