Gabriel's City

by Laylah Hunter

  “You do trust me,” Gabriel says, his voice breathy and hushed, awed, and he lowers his head to nip at Drake’s throat. Drake shudders, can’t help it—Gabriel’s teeth are sharp, and he doesn’t do this with the finesse of a lover, softening the bites with lips and tongue. But it’s good, those tiny spikes of pain just enough to make him feel really alive. “So soft.” Gabriel’s breath is hot on Drake’s neck. “I never would have believed it.” He bites right over the pulse point, and this time he does linger, his tongue soothing the viciousness of the bite, and Drake moans. He holds on to Gabriel’s hips and rocks up, pushing, feeling the way Gabriel grinds against him, so hard, and—

  And Gabriel lets go, rolls away from him. The blanket pulls free, and the air outside is cold.

  “We can do that again later, if you want,” Gabriel says matter-of-factly, like his eyes aren’t dilated and his lips aren’t flushed, “but first we should go get some food.”

  “What?” Drake says. “Now?”

  “I’m hungry,” Gabriel says, pointedly looking away, reaching for his boots.

  “All right,” Drake says slowly. It isn’t really, but he’s not sure how to point that out without making it sound like he’s demanding that they—that Gabriel let him—no, there’s no good way to say it at all. He pushes the blanket off the rest of the way and starts to pull his boots on instead.

  By the time they’re halfway up Cypress—Gabriel’s quiet, and Drake would rather be distracting himself with just about anything other than thinking about the cold rain dripping down the back of his neck—he’s decided that Gabriel must not understand that there’s a connection between kissing and screwing, that normal people move from one to the other. He’s like one of those boys in the mountains that you hear about sometimes, who get lost when they’re small and then raised by wolves. He looks normal enough—filthy, but normal—but he doesn’t understand why people do ordinary things.

  Some things, anyway. He knows how to find food, how to keep the other dangerous bastards on the street from hurting him, how to cut purses in a crowd. How to tell all kinds of fanciful stories. So maybe the comparison doesn’t actually work that well. Maybe it’s just sex he doesn’t understand, and that’s not so surprising, with how skittish he is around people.

  “Have you ever had a whore?” Drake asks before he has a chance to think better of it.

  “Once.” Gabriel kicks a loose pebble up the street. “Well. Half a time.”

  He should know better than to ask these things. “Half a time?”

  “Whores lie,” Gabriel says. “I don’t like being lied to.”

  Drake considers all the ways that could have ended and decides he’ll be happier if he doesn’t know. He snags a pebble from a pile of spilled stone that used to be the front column of a house, and tosses it from hand to hand a few times before he throws it at a cluster of pigeons huddled under another house’s rotting eave. The pigeons flutter and squawk, but don’t leave the relative safety of their perch.

  “That’s not how you catch pigeons,” Gabriel says.

  “You can catch pigeons?” Well. Of course you can, he supposes; most likely you can catch just about anything if you figure out how.

  Gabriel squints up at the sky. “If the rain stops later, I’ll show you.”

  “I look forward to it,” Drake says, even if he’s not completely sure. The rain stopping, at least, would be nice. And catching pigeons can’t be any more unpleasant than tracking petty criminals through the rotting south city and hoping they’re not being led into an ambush.

  “You’ll get spoiled,” Gabriel says, with a little wry smile. “Meat for dinner twice in a row.”

  Oh. Of course that’s why they’d catch pigeons. Gabriel’s right; Drake still is the strange one. “Do they taste good?” His stomach twists, and he walks a little faster. The sooner they can get some food, the better.

  Gabriel shakes his head. “So fancy. How am I supposed to keep up?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Drake says. “I’m sure they’ll be fine.” A pigeon is a little like a dove, isn’t it? And in any case, it’s food.

  They get breakfast near the docks, and then spend the better part of the day in taverns, drinking warmed cider as slowly as they can and sitting as close to the fire as there are seats free. It’s more expensive than just buying coal for the stove, especially because each place wants to toss them out after an hour or two when they’re not in any hurry to spend more coin—but the fires in the tavern hearths burn hotter than their little stove, and sometimes there’s a sailor ashore telling stories about Cabiral or Skadthia or some other place so far away that Gabriel probably doesn’t believe in it.

  And in the afternoon, when they leave the third place they’ve tried, the rain’s tapered off and the clouds are starting to part. Instead of heading further up the row on Front Street, Gabriel turns into an alley. “Catching weather.”

  “You catch pigeons in alleys?” Drake asks. He’s hungry again, and meat—any kind of meat, by now—does sound tempting.

  “You can do it just about anywhere. But sometimes it upsets people and they try to make you stop.” Gabriel finds a rain barrel with a lid on it, and climbs on top of it, reaching for the low overhang of the roof. “So it’s better to do it out of their way.”

  Drake gives Gabriel a minute to clamber onto the slope of the roof, and then follows. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d care about that. Upsetting people, I mean.”

  Gabriel grins. “Some kinds of upsetting people get you things. This kind just makes it harder to get the pigeons to hold still.”

  It shouldn’t surprise him anymore when Gabriel starts to make sense. It’s happening more all the time. “Well, I suppose we wouldn’t want that.”

  “No.” Gabriel crouches, staying low against the shingles as he crawls across the roof. “This way, Drake.” He waits for Drake to catch up, almost, before he launches himself across the narrow alley nearly from a standstill, landing hard against the gentler slope on the other side.

  This is trickier work when it’s wet than it was back in the fall. Drake has to take a few deep breaths to steady his nerves before he can make the leap, and he still skids a bit on the landing—and Gabriel’s hand whips out, catches him by the shoulder to steady him.

  “Careful,” Gabriel says.

  Drake nods. “You ever fall?” The cobbles can’t be easy to land on, and he imagines a broken arm would be terrible to bear, here especially.

  “Never. Don’t you do it, either.”

  “It’s not something people do on purpose.”

  Gabriel shrugs. “Not falling is, though,” he says, and heads for the next roof.

  He’s moving toward the docks—a little further south, hugging the edges of the row of buildings. Too much further and they’ll come to Market, where the streets open wide and even Gabriel can’t cross without falling.

  They stop just before that, on a broad, nearly flat roof whose far side faces the square. Drake wonders what’s below them, whose roof they’re borrowing as a pigeon-catching vantage point.

  “Now,” Gabriel says, “don’t move much. And definitely not fast.” He takes something from his coat pocket—a scrap of bread, probably left over from breakfast—and starts to tear it into shreds. “I imagine you could do this with rats, too, if you were patient enough.”

  “Ugh.” Drake nearly asks if Gabriel has eaten rats, but thinks better of it in time, for once.

  Gabriel nods. “You’d want gloves, because they bite, and I don’t think they’d fall for it enough times to make a filling meal.”

  “I’m just as happy to skip it,” Drake says. “I don’t think I’d care for eating rats.”

  “Cats either, I suppose.” Gabriel scatters some of the bread crumbs across the roof. “Dogs? Snakes?”

  Drake stares at him. “Not if I can help it.”

  “I thought snakes might be too close kin for dragons,” Gabriel says. “They go away in the winter anyway, so it doesn’t m
atter. Now don’t frighten the pigeons.”

  “I won’t,” Drake promises. Is this what Gabriel would be doing without him? Eating rats and dogs and pigeons when he can catch them, without the money to buy any proper food? Facing the winter with no coat, without the presence of mind to save his pennies for coal?

  The first of the pigeons are landing on the roof now, cooing and bobbing their heads as they find the bread crumbs. Gabriel holds one hand out, crumbs cupped in it, watching them with his head cocked sideways like he’s a bird himself. He seems almost completely relaxed, still and calm as the pigeons hop closer, as the boldest one comes right up to his outstretched hand. He can’t possibly be about to—

  He moves so fast Drake doesn’t even see it, just the flutter of gray wings and one sharp squawk that cuts off in the middle. By the time the rest of the flock has risen into the air, Gabriel is wringing the neck of his catch.

  “Here.” He tosses it to Drake. “Hide that one.”

  “Hide it?”

  “They’re not clever. They forget about trouble fast if they can’t see it. Think it won’t come back for them.” Gabriel holds out his hand again. “Like Alan, last week.”

  “Even worse,” Drake says, as the flock starts to settle at the edges of the roof and sidle closer again. “It took him, what, two nights before he went back to that whorehouse.” The whorehouse was the worst part of that job. None of the girls looked older than twelve. It wasn’t a surprise, really; Drake’s gotten used to the idea that Casmile, Gabriel’s Casmile, is full of more kinds of ugliness than he ever imagined before he came here. But remembering those girls made it a lot easier to get the job done when they caught up with Alan the second time, before he could make it in the door.

  “Pigeons are much smaller,” Gabriel says, quietly, so he doesn’t spook the one examining his hand. “So maybe that was like two nights for them.”

  This time Drake is watching more carefully, and he sees it happen when Gabriel moves: the way his offering hand closes, catching the bird’s legs as his other hand snakes out to grab it round the throat. His face is blank and calm when he kills it.

  “One for you and one for me,” Gabriel says as he tosses the second pigeon to Drake. “And I think we can still get more.”

  He catches two more pigeons before the rest grow too wary to come close again. “Just as well,” he says, “since we’re running out of bread to bait them.”

  That’s plenty of this adventure anyway. It’s growing dark already, and it’s cold on the rooftops. Drake’s more than ready to head home.

  Once they get there, of course, they have to clean the damn things, plucking the birds awkwardly in the gloom and then gutting them with Gabriel’s knife. They roast the pigeons, if that’s even the right word for it, on sticks over the coal in their stove, until the skins blacken and the meat smells, if not appetizing, at least edible. It’s oily and strong-flavored, but the meat’s filling all the same. When he’s finished his, Drake wipes his mouth on his sleeve, watching Gabriel strip the last meat from the bones before tossing them on the fire.

  “Thank you,” he says. He could still eat more—he thinks that’s probably true all the time, these days—but he’s not hungry anymore, and that goes a long way toward comfortable.

  “You’re welcome,” Gabriel says gravely. “I’m glad it worked today.” He seems calm still, stable, like the moon’s in the right phase or the tide’s at the right height or whatever it is that makes him sensible. And they’ve had a good day today. Maybe it’s safe to ask about this morning.

  “Why did you want to stop?” Drake asks. “You weren’t just hungry.” Gabriel’s good at ignoring hunger. Fates know he’s seen enough of it.

  “Clever.” Gabriel turns toward the stove, and looks back at Drake out of the corner of his eye. “It wouldn’t have been polite, would it? Rubbing against you like that.”

  Drake has to laugh. “I didn’t mind. I mean, I started it.”

  Gabriel shifts so he’s watching Drake more directly, still crouched by the heat. “You’re a riddle. Every time I think I know your answer, you’re different.”

  “Me?” Drake says. He might not have dared, some other evening, but tonight the word escapes him with barely a thought.

  And it’s all right, because Gabriel only smiles. “Am I as bad as you? Truly?” He reaches out like he wants to touch Drake, and then pulls his hand back. “You’re like a fire. Always changing. So warm.”

  “You’re like,” Drake starts. “No, that’s the problem—you’re not like anything else I know.” He licks his lips, watching the way Gabriel’s eyes shine in the low light of the stove, the way Gabriel waits for him. “I want— Will you let me kiss you again?”

  “You still need to ask?” Gabriel shifts forward, crawls across the bare floor to lean into Drake’s mouth.

  It’s still an awkward kiss, like Gabriel might be trying to bluff his way through but doesn’t truly know what he’s doing. Drake reaches up and cradles the nape of Gabriel’s neck in his hand. Gabriel shivers, clutching at the front of Drake’s shirt, catching skin between his fingers. He bites Drake’s lip, rubs his face against Drake’s like a cat.

  “So soft,” he whispers. “You feel so soft, Drake.” His teeth scrape against Drake’s jaw.

  “Let’s—let’s get in bed,” Drake breathes. He thinks he might not be able to stand it if Gabriel stops him again, might— No, he knows he could, knows he’ll manage even if Gabriel wants to pretend this never happened, but Fates, he wants more.

  Gabriel nods. “You want to . . . like this morning,” he says, and it’s so strange to hear him hesitate that Drake is thrown, for a moment, before he realizes what it means: Gabriel doesn’t know what to call this, doesn’t have a word for what they’re doing here.

  “Don’t pull away this time.” Drake can barely make himself let go for long enough to take off his boots, his jacket; he’ll want to be able to move, want to be able to feel Gabriel there against him, oh Mother Ket, please. He crawls under the blanket and reaches out as Gabriel slides in beside him. “Don’t pull away.” His voice is a tight whisper. “It’s all right if you want to—if you want . . .” and Gabriel kisses him again, as he falters in search of the courage to offer more.

  Drake closes his eyes, presses close against Gabriel along the full length of their bodies, tangling their legs together. He catches himself leaning into the kiss, stops just before he actually pushes Gabriel onto his back. For all the assurances he’s gotten tonight, he knows better than that. Instead he wraps his arms around Gabriel’s waist, reaches up so he can dig his fingers into Gabriel’s back, between the knobs of his spine and the hard wings of his shoulder blades, where the muscle is lean and taut.

  “Ah,” Gabriel says, holding on to Drake’s shoulders. “Drake, what are you doing?”

  “Does it feel good?” Gabriel nods. Drake kisses the soft hollow beneath his jaw. “That’s what I’m doing. You do things to make me happy. Can’t I do that for you too?”

  Gabriel laughs, breathlessly, and reaches up to pet Drake’s hair. “I want you to be happy so you’ll stay,” he says, like he’s explaining himself, excusing his behavior. “Things are so good with you here.”

  Drake turns his head, kisses the inside of Gabriel’s wrist, nips there experimentally, and feels his cock twitch at the way Gabriel’s breathing hitches. It’s vulnerability, he realizes at once. His throat, the inside of his wrist, the soft spots where he could be hurt. That he’s willing to hold still and lower his defenses that far—it’s dizzying.

  “Gabriel,” Drake whispers, his mouth still against those veins. “When you shiver like that, is it bad or good?”

  Gabriel won’t look at him, buries his face in the hollow of Drake’s shoulder. “Good,” he whispers, his breath hot against Drake’s neck. “Good because it’s you.”

  Drake moans, rolls onto his back and pulls Gabriel on top of him. He arches up, mouths at Gabriel’s throat, bites, and this time sucks on that spot. Gabri
el keens and rocks against him, and when Drake lets go, there’s a mark there, bruise-red even against Gabriel’s dusky skin.

  “You want to,” Drake whispers. Gabriel’s as hard as he is. He can feel it against his belly, and his hands shake as he slides them down Gabriel’s sides. “Please—please let me.” He gets one hand between them, palm up, cups Gabriel through his trousers.

  “Drake,” Gabriel says, pushing into Drake’s hand. His voice shakes. “Drake, Drake. Ah.”

  It hurts, Drake wants this so much. “Yes,” he says. “Please, Gabriel. Can I—can I touch?”

  “Do it,” Gabriel says, low and fierce, needy. He arches his back, makes enough room between them for Drake to reach his trouser buttons. Drake pushes his own shirt up, out of the way, and fumbles Gabriel’s trousers open. He’s shaking all the way through. He’s going to— He’s about to— He’s closing his hand around Gabriel’s bare flesh, and Gabriel is thrusting into his touch.

  “Yes,” Drake says to the needy sounds Gabriel makes. “Yes, Gabriel—good, you feel good, I want you to,” and Gabriel nods frantically, his grip too tight on Drake’s shoulders, his hips rocking hard. For a heartbeat, Drake lets himself wonder what it would be like to take this further—to be pinned under Gabriel’s lean weight like this, Gabriel thrusting above him, inside him—and then he’s moaning too, terrified at how tempting that sounds, at how willing he would be to let Gabriel— Not now, though, not tonight, when Gabriel’s already tensing over him, breath harsh and gasping, taut and desperate. He bites down hard on Drake’s shoulder as he shudders, as he splatters Drake’s belly with his climax. It hurts, but Drake swallows the protest as best he can.

  “Drake,” Gabriel says, “Drake,” with the same fervent tone most men use to curse. He leans to the side, just enough so that when he collapses he’s only tangled with Drake’s legs instead of on top of him. “So good, my dragon. So clever.”

  “Thank you.” Drake reaches down to unbutton his own trousers, to take himself in hand. He needs it so much. “I liked it. Fates, I liked it.” He’s already stroking himself when Gabriel’s hand covers his. “Y-you will?”