Page 46 of Bridget & Gabe Are Not Okay

“It’s dull,” Gabriel said, picking up his discarded book. “It would bore you.”

“Might not.”

“It will. It’s… it’s actually about a plague. Account from a physician. Mostly about the measures he recommended, which everybody ignored.”

“Sounds nice and depressing.”

“A little,” Gabriel admitted. “But sometimes the humanity bleeds through. He lost his own daughter. It’s sort of his testimony. Like he’s trying to tell her that he really tried. I don’t know.”

“See, thatdoessound interesting. You can’t just assume I won’t want to hear about things. I love hearing about things. I might surprise you. I am very surprising.”

This edged dangerously close to being about much more than a book.

“I know.”

“I miss you,” Arthur said, very quietly, perhaps quieter than he’d ever been. Gabriel’s heart sank. He had acknowledged the reality of their situation, so they were done for.

Although… maybe not. There was still the magic of the floor. Gabriel didn’t know what to say, so he did what Arthur alwaysdid—drew closer. Put his hand on Arthur’s arm. Leaned in, got a lungful of his air.

Arthur had reacted at once, like he’d been waiting for permission; he kissed Gabriel, hard and then soft, and put his warm hands on Gabriel’s face like he was trying to keep him there. How many times had they done this before? A hundred, at least, and at first Gabriel had been able to lose himself in it—to think only of Arthur and where his hands were at that precise moment, to almost cease to exist except in the places Arthur touched him, but then something had gone wrong. He’d been too aware of himself, too conscious of the life that waited for him outside whichever locked room they were entwined in, and the more he remembered himself, the less he felt like a person who could do… this.

Hold on to Arthur like a lifeline, unwilling and unable to let go; let Arthur’s hands slip inside his shirt without flinching; rest his head in the hollow of Arthur’s collarbone and breathe in the smell of him, and smile when the heart beneath him beat faster just from his nearness. Arthur was always rushing full speed into everything, and Gabriel was quiet and considered and unhurried, and when the two of them were alone and it felt like they had all the time in the world, he’d enjoyed being the one to slow Arthur down.

Not that he’d had any idea what he was doing. But Arthur hadn’t seemed to mind. It appeared to Gabriel that love—because he knew of no other word for what this was, even if it wasn’t spoken aloud—had a calming effect on Arthur. Gabriel found it terrifying and strange.

That night, they’d kissed and moved together clumsily and Arthur had laughed and Gabriel had felt embarrassingly close to crying, and eventually Merlin Lucifer had felt well enoughto come out from under the bed and shout at them for paying attention to anything other than him.

They had never kissed again.

Now Arthur was standing in front of Gabriel holding one end of a rope; at the other end of it was the kitten, the strangest-looking creature Gabriel had ever seen, with a reddish spotted coat just visible through an outer layer of black fur, and ears so pointy and enormous it looked like another species entirely.

The kitten had hissed at first, and given Arthur a nice, deep slash to the neck as he’d wrestled it into its makeshift collar, but now it was just standing with its back slightly arched and its ears pinned back, looking warily around at its captors.

“It won’t be happy, Arthur,” Gabriel said, as Arthur smiled down at the cat, already besotted. “It’s meant to live in the woods.”

“But it won’t live, if we leave it here. It’ll die. Too young. Too small.”

The too-small kitten, the size of John’s terrier, growled weakly.

“Maybe that’s what’s meant to happen. I know it’s hard, but that’s how it is in nature. Some things just aren’t meant to be.”

Arthur shook his head, rejecting this outright. “Just let me try. There’s plenty of room at Camelot. Give me some time with her, once we get back. If it doesn’t work, we can find somewhere safe and far away from people to release her once she’s big enough. If it does work, it’ll be the greatest thing that’s ever happened to anyone. It’s win-win.”

It was hard enough to say no to Arthur. To say no to Arthuranda motherless kitten was always going to be a losing battle.

Besides, there was desperation in his voice that seemed out of kilter with the urgency of this situation. It occurred to Gabriel that Arthur didn’t really need his permission, but he was asking anyway. Like their lives were still entwined. Like they made decisions together.

That was enough for him to say, “Yes, all right, but if it becomes an issue of safety—”

“I’ll make her a little enclosure,” Arthur said happily, clearly having already concocted this plan, sure that Gabriel would agree. “We can use the cage meant for the Beast to send her home, make it nice and comfy. We can take her out for walks! It’s going to work.”

“We’ll see,” said Gabriel, but all he could think was that for the first time in nearly a year, he was the reason that Arthur was smiling.

Twenty-One

Then Sir Bridget and Sir Arthur were sore wounded, for their quests had demanded great feats and grave danger, and so they passed the night in love and friendship, each afeared of the other’s passing, but much brave in the face of death.

—FROM AN EARLY DRAFT OFTHE QUESTS OF KING GABRIEL AND HIS ROUND TABLEBY SIR FLORIAN ARDEN