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The dreary London sky is as dour as his cup of cold English breakfast that sits forgotten on his tea-stained desk, the veil of twilight an afterthought as the street lamps spark alight with warm yet lonely orange glows to accent the rumbling panther of a Triumph Gloria sliding sleekly up to the curbside. Yes, the sky is indeed a dismal design of clouded ill-intents and would-be to do lists, but as the tobacco singes a hazy dancer of smoke from his pipe, Inference is more intrigued by the driver who slips out of the seat with a bag in hand and a perk of a song in his step.
The bastard has some nerve to arrive after months without even a simple telegraph of his wellbeing, but the creative types are never ones to settle down when funds are an abundant flow from the family account and the populous world over still claws from the dregs of economic tragedy, but so be it. For himself, the former soldier now detective prefers to be humble as the orphanage never offered any wandering eye for riches aplenty without at least scraping by with a pence or three stolen from the pockets of consumers on the closest High Street and the King’s military so happened to make luxury a far cry of pride’s broken affair. For all of this, he is quite proud of his humble flat, decorated with the only wares necessary to conduct business and infer from the case files suspects and notions and the lot alike. Detective work, regardless of how few notes are found in the coin purses of his fellow citizens, is still a necessity even if it feels like a dying breed of marketable work.
Sure enough, his thoughts crash with every pitter patter of tension seizing at his heartstrings until there is a rap on the door, a hurried tempo of excitement evident, and whatever anxiety would be floundering in the wafting chimney sweeps solidifies in his belly as the detective limps over to his door to find a man he wished so badly he did not want to see ever again—the departing voyage of the Queen Mary was enough an atrocious battering on his lungs.
Nothing short of devilishly handsome and fine attire stands across the threshold, even if the plumes of ostrich feathers cascading from his shoulders add a sense of high-class tackiness that Inference strangely appreciates if only because of whose shoulders those feathers perch upon. It works well on this vision of his hopes and desires, this too-good world traveler with his family’s vault in his pocket an entire beast of what he would love to wake up to each weary dawn.
“Look at you, my good man, Mister Inference himself!” and before Inference can throttle away any overdue cordialityin the means of an excessive maneuver, he is swept into the arms of the taller form who smells of expensive scotch and roasted meat; there must have been a party, obviously, considering suit and tie and… whatever those feathers are supposed to bely. A peacock presenting his feathers to a profitable wife? Inference could deduce all the day long and still never quite pin down the enigma embracing him a tad bit too long.
But, James smells good, too good, and his hands leave traces of embers along the detective’s back as they finally ease apart. He would do better to avoid the gaze directed towards him as he knows full well what is about to procure from the once barren lines of communication. It comes in full force with a suck of teeth and a crease of brow when James—no, Jack, heir to wealth and title boundless with all multitudes of endeavors possible—grouses out with more than just a slight tinge of concern, “have you been eating well?”
Inference turns then, hardly offering any mind to the question as he entirely pushes the weight of it off his back; money is not scarce for him, not really, but food is necessary for those with poorer qualities of life and he tries his best not to take more than he should. Living a life grown on the ambles of destitution ingrained in his bones a particular motto and he will not break of it, especially considering it is what got him through the depravity of his few military years.
“Do not ignore me—and where is your bloody cane?” Ah, there it is, Jack bustling into his flat as though he owns at minimum fifty-one percent of it and makes the payments all on his own, gingerly laying down his prime leather satchel to shut the door in a fluster of motion as he goes on a small journey for the object inquired. It would be a determined fool’s errand were it not sitting propped against the desk where Inference stubbornly placed it to force himself to remember his hindrances. For all it was worth, he has hidden the damn thing in the nooks and crannies of the dusty floorboards only to realize the ache that comes without relying upon it thus weakness purveys ego and becomes the reason why it sits out in plain sight.
Like he would ever voice that reason though.
“I hate it,” the veteran reminds in a self-deprecating voice to pause any reprimand of worry bubbling in Jack’s throat, “I’d rather suffer than constantly rely on it.”
Jack, for all the silver spoons granted to him since birth, is more so the kind of gentleman who dallies in grating a man’s nerves more with his charitable mannerisms towards the common folk rather than truly outweigh his lifetime of opulent grandeur. Traveling from port to port, peering along the Empire’s sweeps into boundless territories to stake supposed holy claim, wining and dining with aristocrats who will pay pretty coin for his artwork or for the mere presence of his company; what sympathy could Jack have budded for a veteran harmed not in combat but by an accident? Yet, there he stands with the squeak of Italian leather as he fidgets, scorching a dismally reprehensive gaze over towards the detective London calls Mister Inference. Then, his lips part, and Inference hears with frank melody, “and I do despise witnessing you allow your pride to keep you from having a smidgeon of comfort."
Inference sighs, unrelenting as he leans against the broad side of his desk, crossing his arms in some display of amicable defense. The man is here for some reason unknown to him as London is full of skirts to chase and bright parties to attend if one is not so unlucky to not be rich in this decade. Everything feels like a powder keg, dynamite ripe for the implosion, and all that they know could surely disintegrate into bomb flash and debris. It feels tense, all of it, but not them, not there, even if the detective himself is not quite astute on where to deduce the means of this visit and words have been more or less sorely traded. Still, Jack is here after months away, and he is curious, so avidly curious.
“How was New York? As bustling a metropolis as our fair London?”
The smile is a crescendo of sumptuous recourse, split between the ego enlarged by a life swath with wealth passed down through the generations of ancestors who toiled in the politics of an Empire omnipotent and the decency abiding upper class echelon to not simply boast about. Still, there is a prick of something far more consoling in the corners of his eyes, and the man called Inference, were density more a companion than intellectual deduction, might would lie to himself to believe in a fantasy of adoration—or, what little can be found between the two of them. Cordiality is a must, a fine dance as mannerly as any affair, but here, in the more sporadic trembles of a cadenza for violin strings, they are just them, James and not-really-Inference.
“Just as useless as London, if not more,” the gentleman replies with a shift of his smile catalyzing into an illustration of boyish tease. It only serves to flutter heartbeat as such an expression is too handsome to bear sight to, but song and dance of social cues have become an area of expertise for the veteran.
“ More useless? I’d have thought it would have lived up to its fair name of the Greatest City.”
“It lacks a certain something,” and Jack’s eyes are so keenly set upon his position that Inference might infer he is what can never be unearthed in any city sitting golden across the currents and tides of the Atlantic expanse. He feels wanted, desired even in the most minute of ways, as though holy matrimony might be the only cure to his strange friend’s wanderlust.
Still, the shorter of the pair snorts, turning to tidy up his case files into some organized state of perhaps clean but not quite there. It helped the steady of his hands for something to put to task because his eyes, blurred even on the better days, may go cross-eyed even with the aid of glasses perched on his nose. Such thoughts needed to be thrown into the Thames to waterlog and to decay with all his other frivolous affections. Fortunate, or unfortunate depending on the circumstances, song and dance and theatrics were all necessities to procure from his little bag of tricks, so he does, inexplicably so, with a tilt of his head and blandness of voice, “Lacks something? Pray, what could be lacking? Were there no dames to woo in Times Square?”
A laugh chimes hollow and lost as though Jack himself were victim to a dismal consequence of his own concoction, a certain kind of appoggiatura of a soloist’s plight where the pause endured after is too expedient and the piece is shambles across oak floor. Inference would take credit for it were he not a slightly fretting man, wondering if he has taken knife into hand and stabbed into a haunt whispering cloying sweetness of could-never-be.
“My God, man, what do you take me for?” gawks the gentleman as he slips coat and hat onto the door side rack to perchance make himself more amenable to the house call, “so desperate for romance that I am debased enough to bother all of New York’s poor ladies in the hopes they’re of the Rockefeller's brood?”
Determent is a definition of which Inference has never grasped to any respectable consent, so he regards his friend with a secretive hint that guides a raise of his brow; he is knowledgeable to too many instances of wistful sighs and hopeful elegies when love falls into drifting rose petals and the race for a lovely thing’s hand is lost by just a head. “This coming from quite possibly the most romantic bastard this side of the Thames? The same bloke who sobbed for three bleeding weeks when Lady Bella of the Golden Rose turned down your dinner invitation to instead meet with a rival Duke?”
With a scoff and a scuff of his leather shoes, Jack appears despondent and almost shamed into a disposition most petulant. His demeanor is soured from gentleman of caliber to a child more than likely denied a lollipop from the candy store from their local high street. It would be with a huff of his chest to rile forth any pride not lying inshambles before the bruised ego would permit him to mutter, “years ago, my dearest friend—I am less fool thanksto the wisdom that comes with age.”
“It was right before you boarded for New York, James, only just some months ago.”
“You never could fail on the details; not even for me.”
It would be adorable, this blossoming carmine rose into the gardens of their relationship would it not be so blatantly obvious that Inference is not an object of affections nor would ever be on that towering list. It would have been a sore in his side in their preceding years as Inference knows full well that he is a man that comes decorated in both knife and agony, his shrew ruse of sophistication hiding the battle scars mottled on both body and spirit. By now, he thought Jack would tire of dealing with the lower middle class, would find it exhausting to give two shits about a man who learned the hilt of a blade and the slash of steel if only for basis of survival on the streets of East End. London altogether is a cold mother whose milk has run dry, casting her ilk into the alleyways and chiding them profusely to run along to the winding streets that once harkened the plight found amongst the impoverishment of Elephant and Castle.
“Still more fool if you’re still standing to endure my reasoning,” but the olive branch is offered with the gift of a smile, small but tugging at the scars along the corner of his mouth, another mark to bear from the accident that turned his life into a scrambling mess of guesswork. Still, brooding over the past will provide him little solace considering this could turn into a war of wits and his mind is wracked useless with how handsome the fractals of umbra dance along Jack’s features in the warmth of his scant lighting.
“And would be more of a fool if I did not provide some purpose of my visit to my sudden host,” says Jack with a baritone honeyed with all the whims twisting words into some form of love that is only theirs and yet not anyone’s. It turns Inference’s stomach, flutters his heart, and colors the world into a strange hue of dusty rose.
To fathom he fell in love with this man the first moment their frames crashed on some fine August day, case files and sketch work scattering about the curbside for them to scurry like starved rats with apology on their tongues. First solo case dear old Russell had bestowed upon him and luck would have it to almost lose all of the evidence on the disappearance of a lord and his wife—his horrid abuse coming to light after his body found rotting while she had eloped with some specialist of reptiles for South America—if not for the debilitating repetition of ‘sorry’ and helpful hands of a fit-to-do bloke whose eyes were such syrupy amber, he nearly forgot his not-name.
Kindness is a suspicious trait, one he has frowned upon for that simple fact. Kindness would always mean a two-way street, a bartering tool for later means when the mind is fraught with the disease of forgetfulness and the devil comes for his due. However, Jack never seems to ever want to call in his cards, stacked as they are, preferring to hold them under lock and key to bide Inference’s trust until it is ripe for heartbreaking.
He never does and perhaps he never will, and the veteran is himself a wistful fool to ever ponder the events of a future not yet scribbled down in Time's diary.
“Oh?” is all he can offer to his friend who is plundering his satchel for an item or three; would it be a wrinkled postcard depicting New York's grand monolith of architectural achievement, a building a hundred stories high to be lauded the world over? A small but dutiful trinket to sit about face atop the hurricane drop of his papers, collecting dust and fondness from across a tea-stained desk? As God or whomever deemed it most astute that he be the size of a pea pod in comparison to most other gents in drab London reign, Inference cannot peer over his friend’s shoulder to steal a glance of any object whether dull or shiny or nonexistent.
Then, of course, the man who could possibly brush fingertips along underside of a street lamp steals away minutes for the anticipation to nearly boil away all of Inference’s patience as he relents with a chuckling hum, “don’t leave a busy man waiting, James.”
“Hush,” retorts Jack in jovial flair, something orange warm curling arabesque in the oak branches of the detective’sribs once the spark lights the candle in the window of his soul. Blue would surely reflect a romantic depiction of plumdusk coalescing along the flotsam of sea tides reaching across the sand dunes for the treasure of sea shells, but years of acquiring hard-earned lessons from inquiring witnesses too directly and botching undercover details has earned him a skill in steeling his gaze.
“Now,” comes the theatrics, titillating as sunflowers unfurl in a hazel gaze once the two are turned towards each other with a turn of the painter’s heel, “may I humbly present to the esteemed Inference offerings of gifts to perchance obtain his forgiveness?”
Fingers roll along the tweed of a dull cornflower coat as Inference holds a countenance of boredom though his attention truly entrapped in the tender snarls of Jack’s pomp and circumstance. A blunt permission grunts out into distance between them, lacking in all way of coherent syllable yet potent nonetheless, and the megawatt flare of a comely grin is due reward for accepting the terms of their bartering.
That grin widens, curling at the ends like devilish ivy along a cream trellis as the first gift to be held out in the void of space between them is a glass fridge box which may or may not hold within its clear walls a delight of a sugar-laden treat Inference has not had pass his lips in far too damn long. Oh, the phantom taste of it tingles across the plains of his tongue, sumptuous and decadent in a way only a cloud could melt along the taste buds—and by God, it is right there for all for his indulgence, his traitorous stomach’s gurgling loudly to draw an embarrassing hue of scarlet to the highs of his cheeks as its contents are sparse.
“Eton mess which I recall is one of your favorites,” the gentleman of painting caliber reckons with careful placement of the dish onto the other end of the desk, “I had to more or less bribe Mrs. Campbell with a ride into town tomorrow just to sneak this out so I hope you’re satisfied.”
For all the inhibitions built upon through trial or error or what-have-it, not an ounce of it impedes the sudden reach for the dishware to lift the lid, eyes certainly coloring into a night sky starving for the orange drops of dawn’s first breach of sunshine. It becomes a tip and swing of scales, the predicament of going to fetch a fork from the kitchenette to shovel down the dessert with all its beautiful garnishment of strawberries and hand-whipped cream at his helms, but sensibility jerks his leash back by the collar and Inference obeys, placing the confection back down with a mere sheepish nod.
“How kind of you,” and that is that, ends that trail of famished thought even though his stomach means to be obstreperous.
To comment there is a twinge of disappointment is underwhelming; the veteran would concern himself with potential offense were it not for the smoothing back of such a glum wrinkle along the corners of honey eyes before a fog of tension can encroach the ambiance that borders near romantic. Which, of course, Inference is no muse for romance, a hard juxtaposition of it in fact, preferring an identity of steeled logic coupled with coarse moxie as to infer from the world all its secrets is more of a lifestyle than wooing potential partners at those ghastly cordial affairs. Ironic enough how Jack is so enamored with love, how it seemingly drives his motives. Rather, it is what it appears at face value though they might could both suppose they wear a mask even when alone with the other.
“For my second offering, I must preface that I am painfully aware of your fixation and defense of our beloved Christie,” playfully begins Jack as he seemingly admonishes him for his particular choice of mystery writer after grabbing something else from the bag, “but I thought you might enjoy a palette cleanser from the States if you have not already purchased a copy.”
Inference gingerly takes ahold of the novel which has obviously been crammed in between the confinement of luggage for God only knows how long since purchase, but it is all-in-all intact. From the state of its frayed edges and wrinkled cover, the book might be more of a tome of Gulliver’s adventures, discovered by his friend during his travels and determined to be bought for some idiot workaholic home in the Sceptered Isle who now holds it as though enchanted. Surely it is unintentional that this silly thing sows another seedling into the soils of his sentiments, so he merely nods to offer his interest though his hummingbird heart is circumspect, “ Death in the Dusk? Well, I’m intrigued."
Even before Inference can even crack open to the first page, Jack’s hands are occupied with what is presumably the last of whatever else he happened to grab before driving off from his estate in his night-sleek Gloria and what is held there piques curiosity fouler than any feline could ever muster.
“And, lastly,” the gentleman adorned in Savile Row finery addresses with a tinge of rose petals in his tone, “I wanted to bring a little of the world outside back to you.”
Entirely taken aback by the lack of lead up other than that, Inference is witness to his friend traipsing over to the gramophone sitting idle in its little corner, usually left forgotten until the silence swallows his psyche whole to unbury the little nicks of hissing things only he can hear. Yet, there the man is, bent over to fumble with the wind up, working with the elbow, and generally making a fuss over the contraption which entices the shorter of them to creak a limp step or two across the floorboards. “Jack? What in the hell are you doing?”
“I got bored of the States,” comes the off-handed statement while hands bustle over the gramophone with awkward precision, “and decided to catch the next damn boat to wherever would take me. God, luck would have it to sail me right to Montevideo Bay—I had to pinch myself! I thought our vessel had capsized and I had drowned, but no… no.”
The pause ceasing the words pouring from those bourbon-stained chords dampens the air as though fresh rain just departs to unveil a bewitching Neverland star glimmering in a span of resplendent skies, always second to the right. Twilight is a shimmering consequence in their quiet connection as cotton sailboats glide along an ocean’s teal waves to pluck bottles with coded messages to be deciphered while radio chatter muffles further and further into an incoherent mess of meaning. The men are apt to steady, unready for the jump, though Time does not hinder itself merciful for even them, so the clock hands march ever forward.
When Jack turns to spare a glance over his shoulder, a delicate hint of some enigmatic emotion is swaddled in irises auriferous. Mystery of it all astounds Inference whose bloodhound haunches raise in some modicum of allure to unlock the treasure chests buried throughout the catacombs of the gentleman’s mental labyrinth; however, instead of diving towards the drafty alcoves of a helm’s keep, he stands attentive, ever patiently waiting for his commanding officer’s brief. Hesitation is marked by the blossoming tension steadying a firm line of a handsome jaw but then unhinges a waltz of syllables swaying along to a most euphoric Sinfonietta:
“The waters were a blue I have been blessed to see so many times here in eyes I did not recognize at first. I could see the shells and even the fish since the sands were so white and water so clear, but there was something so hidden away from me that it drove me bloody homesick. Oh, God, did I live life to avoid it; I danced with the fairest of ladies who made an amateur of me, dined with my fellow man whilst we traded stories of our travels—hell, I think I may have picked up a good bit of the language! God, it was paradise…”
Another pause statics white noise in the rush of Inference’s blood as he asks in near disbelief, “and you left so-called ‘paradise’ for jolly old London?”
A laugh, tired and truthful. “Not for London.”
A crackle echoes in the flat once the needle hits the record Jack has placed onto the gramophone, cutting thrice into the root of this problem of being unable to linger along the sun-bleached shorelines of Uruguay. What a folly it would be to return to the hustle of the city, to return to the stilted society where manners and etiquette were indeed transforming with the catalyst of progress, but still so bleak for so many of their fellows. None of it makes a lick of sense, not until Inference’s gaze catches Jack turning about face to offer his hand with a low bow.
“The blazes are you doing, James?”
“May I have this dance? Even if the song hardly conveys my forthcoming?”
Inference sputters as though caught red handed, all his secrets laid threadbare for the other to read with rapt fortitude. Never once has he ever conjured some illusion of them dancing, never grasped the vision of Jack twirling him the same as he does the ladies during the torment of those terrible soirees, but the longing that twines around his heart makes it ache in the kindest of kills—and he wants to desperately but— “you know I can’t fucking dance.”
“There he is,” Jack chuckles once more, smile crookedly divine as his eyes level onto the shorter frame, “as foul mouthed as a sailor when your fangs come out.”
If this exchange were to upend his demeanor as simply a bloke who deigned fancies as ‘uninteresting,’ it may would be his undoing as any detective of serviceable reputation. For the rumors to whispered along the clicks of silverware and the chime of wine glass that the Mister Inference was as debauched as any dilly boy perceived by the so-called higher authorities of morality would utterly end his career, that he is certain. Hell, just a few short years ago, he was so miserable at keeping up appearances for the sake of his finances, he refused to take a measly four steps towards the fringes of Soho unless he had a strict alignment of evidence which would put him there only for matters work related. And yet, bless whatever constellation aligned just so for the former soldier as there was no desire to burn with men who imbibed in similar tastes, felt no need to step into a hidden facet of Caravan society to burn with the grind of men who were willing to throw themselves into the pyre for a mere sup of saccharine sin.
No, none of that ever arose in lustful flames slithering vines of heated prose along the grips of his thighs as for all that could have been, he met Jack who took what quivering heat still quaking silent in his chest and cradled it in the curve of a gentle smile with “how do you do ?”
“I’m fouler,” Inference challenges, glaring at his friend with all the sharp edge of a butcher’s hook. Such attempt to cauterize his poor flayed apart ego barely diffuses the confidence swirling mirthful in the amber gaze trailing along his form, but it rallies forth a further disadvantage as what lingers in the auric glimmer is an abundance of promise where hands are held across the dozens of rose petals scattered across bedsheets.
“Indeed, you are,” agreement comes with a price, they are both too keenly aware.
“You—you were just prattling on about my limp so now you are intent on mocking me?”
Molasses comfort sinks slow and hot along the nicks of his soul when another chuckle chimes from the depths of a low throat. “I want you to lean on me so I can bear the brunt or is your pride too steeled for it, my masterful detective?”
Happenstance would have him a sputtering mess, and for once in his recent tenure of living, Inference is flushed apple red along the peaks of his cheeks and unable to reasonably force out any blunt reprimand worthy of notoriety. He is losing foundation quick, unsteady as pillars crumble into the bygones as an onslaught of nothing but assumption that this weave and tug of their prance around one another was a couple’s dance after all. What dignity he surmised for his disposition is set adrift towards a frontier of what-ifs, but if Jack is there and the bastard is offering his hand, well—.
So be it.
“Make a fool of me and I will take out your knees,” is a threat with a morbid lack of vitriol, more bittersweet than acidic as it cuts from the detective’s tongue which belies a language only his companion will ever hear. Oh, and if Jack were assured of his stance along the stanza of this song, he is undeniably elated as he tenderly claims the white flag of Inference’s hand to kiss along the knuckles.
“Banish such thoughts, darling.”
His poor foolish heart almost fails with a falsetto pitter patter drumming too close to his lungs and his breath catchesin his throat as he feels his blood brewing hope in his veins; he relents and submerges in infinitesimal gold.
A threat of lightning spreads across the horizon of his skin, goosebumps mottling beneath his clothes as the pressure drops into a chill when hands take his own to place them wherever Jack prefers. Ever still an epitome of propriety, there is a timidity in the embrace, formal yet so intimate considering they are alone in the hollows of a humble flat. Gazes lock together and are fretful to break as the first steps are attempted and a lack of cadence found mourning in the softer candor, almost bemoaning some ill-begotten fate upon the flow of strings. This suits the former soldier just fine as during the few instances he has been coerced by means authoritarian to include himself on the dance floor, he has found the dancers of London halls prefer more of a jig, some upbeat tempo to bother the poor battering his body should have never endured during a zenith of youth.
One day, Inference might inquire if Jack can see napalms in the skies aligning to the fringes of his soul. Today, however, requires the lack of it.
“You’re following well,” the painter proffers, beaming even as the detective catches his heel on the rug while attempting to imitate Jack’s own drag, forcing the expert of this dance to gently pull him closer to stave off any injuries, “though you’re as stiff as marble.”
“Do you really blame me?” is almost alluding to the pout evident on his bottom lip from what could have been a horrendous blunder.
Any coherence careens off a jagged cliff side as baritone drops another chord or three and Jack’s voice is as warm as scotch sipped by a winter fire, “I would never.”
Silence then crawls into his throat while Jack hums with each trembling lyric as he keeps their sternums pressed close with each slow prance of the cadena.
“So…” Inference pointedly murmurs for a chance to belittle his own mounting awkwardness at his horrid proficiency in adapting to some novel motion of limbs and fancies. The moment any sound emits past his lips though stirs a somber epiphany that to speak would mean the gentleman would no longer sing and, while he intends to proceed with steam rumbling in his joints, he is a bit disheartened by a lack of foresight. “You acquired such talents in Montevideo?”
Laughing in bounteous charm, Jack’s eyes wrinkle with such a handsomely wide grin as he slips away from his partner to encircle him. “Lovely couple taught me, yes, or well, the lady of them did. They were on holiday after retiring from a famous circus troupe, of all places to have been employed! Margie—or that is what she told me to call her—prided herself on making an amateur of me with dances like this tango. Her husband is unfortunate to have two left feet and the most wicked of smiles, but what an admirable chap to let an aficionada such as herself provide wonderful tutelage to bumbling prat such as myself.”
“Ah,” that would explain more than it should as Inference infers, “all you needed to say was you had lessons.”
Jack’s sunshine grin falters into a modest shade of bashful pink, the same flush tinting along the scrunch of his nose, “you should kinder to my embellishment of her. After all, she is the one who told me to come home to you.”
Muteness is all that can be evoked from an admission so prophetic as the bells toll holy in his ears, a vibrant shock that is as flare hot as it is tundra cold to rattle his bones with an old haphazard rush of ‘maybes’ spoken in tongues millennia before their nascent. Such grandeur encompassing his stagecoach thoughts weigh down his limbs and so Jack must once more hinder a fall, but his laughter is honeysuckle effervescence bobbing along a bumblebee swing. Such folly does not impede upon his pride when speechlessness is formulated from the inebriation not from any bitter absinthe, but from rather from the audacity of such commitment to the call and, by God, what a call this man harkens to as he thumbs along the small of Inference’s back.
“For such a tiny miss, Margie is a conniving little lady, always digging me for details about this no-nonsense detective I never cease to brag about. Unbeknownst to myself, I apparently chatter on about you incessantly: about your stuffy demeanor, your sharp visage, and, of course, I must tell all about your more famous cases... Why, I think I told her the story of the art trade murders at least twice over,” and the detective, who is pinpoint of fixation for the regalia of storytelling abroad, listens to the sugared mantra of his praise. It is only a slice of a minute where he might could wonder if he appears as dumbfounded as he believes, expression a distant loss on his face. Regardless, Jack meanders on, golden orbs ever alight as he watches whatever semblance of emotion such features would permit, “and, lo and behold, one night as we are all dining together on the veranda, she asked of me what I thought of the stars. I was a bit taken aback, but I told her ‘Madam, the stars here are a wonder, but the ocean is a blue I somehow miss fondly.’”
Inquisition parts his lips and Inference echoes from the chambers of his wasp hive lungs and firefly heart, “that’s all?”
“Hardly, and grateful I am for it. Oh, no, dear, she merely tapped a finger to her lips,” and the bastard has the gall to imitate the movement with a coy wink, “and told me in the most devious of ways that I was lovesick and, perhaps if she could take a guess, it was for this grumpy bastard I never shut up about.”
“How— What ?”
Jack shushes him, with leaning down to touch their foreheads together as he whisks away whatever doubts cloud in grayish taunt with a whisper peony tender, “it struck me like lightning. How did I miss it all these years? Every passing conversation, every glance, every time I declined an invitation to spend it with you and how damn pleased like a finch you were for it… I had to come home, Niraj. I had to be on the first boat out of Montevideo to come home to you.”
Lowlight glow and waltzing shadow blear in the periphery, their tango ceasing with a sinking dip as Inference is cradled in an embrace so secure, it would be a quandary for the ages if Jack would ever let him go. The gramophone then crackles with the loss of song, providing nothing but the monotone repetition of a needle passing over the blank of the record. The power this man has over his name, his true name, gifted by a mother who did not live long enough to see her only son thrive past five summers, is nigh inconceivable to the mortal psyche. Yet, he stifles back the weakness inking placid in the base of his throat and in its stead invokes a thin façade of stalwart devotion more pertinent for such confession.
He owes Jack and his own sunken dreams that much.
With every rise and fall of Jack’s chest, there is poetry woven in copper filigree, a scribbling of letters to be cast into a whirlwind of fantastical pontification. With every heartbeat against his own, a torment of desire wants to dig into Jack’s chest to split open his sternum so that he might perch along the veins and forever be enshrined in a cage of ribs. With every inch between them, with all the miles and the minutes that could be outlined by cartographers alike, his blue eyes hued by the laden of his affections spark to life with how the warm luminance catches the feathered ends of just tousled hair to emulate a crown. Ironic it is that this man would have such a royal claim rightly bestowed only to toss it merrily into the murky Thames just to instead drive out to where a certain detective fumes over a plethora of headaches and dead ends to turn upright.
Their lips are too close yet too far, miles and inches strangled in the marrow, small lukewarm puffs of breath caught in the middle. The thrum of coy fervency imbibes an idea of an afterglow when stardust hangs in lofty strands in the eyes only to fade into some sweet not-death as one collides into the other in horse break stampede and gravity would be their chains were it not for the leather clad of hand on his back. Palms which have only known the labor of paint brush and wine stem cup his waist and spine so dearly in this prolonged dip that is may begin to embellish their relationship with less platonic intentions and more courting implications.
Jack eyes flit across the golden span of bird wing as his brows crease, still unmoving from how he holds the other so close to his breast. “What say you, dearest?”
The precipice is there, right there, a tottering swing of salt air twitching electricity along his nerves, and Inferencetastes thirst along his tongue—so he jumps.
“Kiss me,” is the fall, the acceptance of sudden turn of fate after having thought he read through the pages so meticulously, “damn it all to hell, just kiss me, Jack.”
A command so fervently given is taken up with a soldier’s burden, but reluctance is fool’s gold not held in an ounce within a gaze so splendidly riant. Surely this gentleman of echelon high will realize the folly of such a gamble in the days to come, and yet, Inference prays such a dismal morning never rises as lips caress roses along his. Such a kiss tears the breath from his lungs yet endearingly fills him all the same, and what should fulfill the illusion of fireworks shatter along the fine threads of his heartlines is instead a calmer thing, but no less devoted. It is as though the world should have ceased to turn on her axis, yet London moves on with ever cumbersome facets of life without due pause, and it feels a little more normal, a little more perfect as they part just so to bask in being beloved.
After all, it could never be less of a fissure along the edge of his chest, any less of tea for two and two now for tea and half-melted Eton mess when all he could ever long is a pledge with a smile promised along the seam of his lips.