Full o'Festive Spirits Read online

  As a result of these shenanigans, it was damn near nine o’clock by the time the tree and he darkened the doorway of the Greek Emporium. Only one of them could’ve been declared ‘spruce’ at this point, by a sympathetic soul with a kindly eye. Gabriel’s heart was tooting away like a steam train as they squished their way inside, still none the wiser about who was manning the counter, cos he couldn’t see bugger-all but branches.

  “Sorry, I can’t leave it outside, someone might snaffle it…” Gabriel apologised through a face-full of foliage, in hopes of averting a flea in his ear, t’boot. “Oof…fuck, ’tis a tight fit.”

  No answer was the reply, which sounded ominous, so Gabriel peered around the side, almost impaling his eyeball on a spear o’spiky needles. Halleloo. Now, that was a sight worth swapping his own for.

  There He stood. Drop-dead gorgeous and as flinty as fuck. His features appeared to be at fisticuffs; battling it out between incredulity and amusement. Unless, he suffered from heartburn. Gabriel had been convinced Flinty could start a fight in an empty room before seeing the evidence writ large upon his face.

  “Oh, hiya. ’Tis you…I didn’t think-I thought I might’ve mis—” Oops. “No matter, Blimey, I’m pricked t’fuck.” Those exquisitely carved lips parted, but all that spilled forth was a single vowel o’some sort. Gabe had meant to say prickled…but the ‘l’ went awry en route. “Oops, sorry. That sounded better in my head,” Gabriel fibbed. It had started off a lot less fun. “Y’okay?”

  “I’m…fine. S’okay, I-it sounded…fine. I mean, I know what you mean. I—”

  He was fine—very fine indeed—but the rest was a pick ‘n’ mix of mumble. That mattered not. Nothing did, except that He was here…and even almost smiling, in a wolfish sort o’way.

  “I come bearing tidings of temperance in the face of festive temptation…” Gabriel announced, before he forgot his (more than a mite tenuous) reason for turning up in the first place.

  Crikey…what a palaver. Gabe had hoped to come strolling in, casual-as-yer-please, and looking a helluva lot less raddled than last time they met. Now, he looked as if he’d been rolling around in pine needles, reeked of lager, and was a smidge mussed, here ‘n’ there. After propping the tree against the fridge—he needed access to the carrier dangling from his wrist—Gabriel had a forage in his lucky dip bag o’trimmings, and hey presto, produced the six doors a-flapping calendar. With a bit of a flourish, it must be admitted.

  “Voilà! There y’go look,” he grinned in triumph, plonking it on the countertop. “Ha. Betcha don’t last three days, my arse.”

  5 go-oold stars. 4 Gabriel please. Just 3 scoffed…2 become 1…and a cherry on top o’the tree.

  “Fuck.” That particular word, coming straight after the last two Gabe had uttered, set off such a festive frenzy in his boxers that his cock would’ve embarked upon the ‘Okey-Cokey’, sporting a titchy Santa hat, if it had one handy. Even before the cherry was factored in. Meanwhile, the only words jigging about on the tip of Gabe’s tongue were, yes please. He could, perhaps, have stretched to, if you like, but the former was a mite more mannerly.

  “Was that a general observation, a verbal ejaculation, or a somewhat strumpety invitation?” Gabriel found himself asking. About an abated breath before his eyeballs damn near fell out of his head…and he’d uttered it. Heavens knows how it went down on Planet Flinty. ’Twas his fault, Gabe decided. Possibly in much the manner he might once have insisted he started it, in the playground. Flinty was a bad influence. With a filthy mouth, t’boot.

  The scoundrel blinked, several times, then, to Gabriel’s astonishment, spluttered out such a snort of mirth, he wondered if Flinty had been on the festive sherry.

  “I…fucknows.” This came accompanied by a spot of rapid blinking. Oddly ’nuff.

  “You are a font of obscenity waiting to happen…Mr—dear sir,” Gabriel informed him. Having just about snatched ‘Flinty’ back, before ’twas flaunting itself on the wrong side of his lips.

  “Dylan.” He supplied, as casual as casual as y’like, but the hand he raked through his tousled locks seemed anything but. Quite aside from making Gabriel’s own fingers twitch enviously, it was the sort of go-to gesture that oft suggested the jitters. Gabe sort of scuffed at his scalp or kneaded between his brows with the heel of his hand. Or, scrubbed at his eyes and p’raps fiddled ‘n’ fidgeted, a bit. Okay, that list was getting a tad out o’hand.

  “Dylan…” It rolled off his tongue with dark ‘n’ dangerous aplomb, just as he’d suspected. The impulse to repeat it had been impossible to resist. “Oops, sorry. I’m Gabriel.”

  “Gabriel…” Dylan echoed, tilting his head to one side, as if he were listening to it. Gabe’s name sounded…different, when Dylan said it. He rolled the r’s and caressed with ‘l’ with a lingering tongue, which sounded far more luscious than a spat-out G with some afterthought letters trailing in its wake. Gabriel liked it…verily much.

  Okay. So far, so fair enough. They’d had a flurry o’fucks and stood there repeating each other’s names. As y’do. It was a most oddsome encounter. Gabriel didn’t quite know what to make of Dylan, who was such a clash of contradictions, he seemed out of sorts with himself. His body language hailed from…elsewhere. Another continent? Century? Meanwhile, his features squabbled amongst themselves as Dylan did his damnedest to take a lot of no notice. A feat akin to attempting to scoff a curry on a rollercoaster.

  “Why are you carting a tree and a guitar around with you?” Dylan abruptly asked. A question so ordinary, ’twas somehow bizarre.

  “Oh. It was a bit of an accident, the tree part. I couldn’t really say no, once ’twas offered, it would’ve been like turning down a stray kitten. Behopes I don’t meet one of those too, or I’m buggered, unless it can get comfy in my pocket.”

  “Have you got far to go?” This was pitched oh, so lightly, it sounded quite the opposite. Is Dylan just making conversation, or…?

  “That p’raps depends if you’re carrying a tree, guitar, a couple o’carriers, and a stray kitty, I guess. Camden. So, not too far. On the bus,” Gabriel grimaced.

  “Camden…” Dylan mused, then sort of shook his head a smidge, and sighed. “Are you heading home when you leave here? Only, I finish work in half-hour, and I’m heading that way…I could give you a hand, if you like,” he shrugged.

  The shake ‘n’ sigh suggested; fuck, I can’t believe I’m about to say this but…

  The shrug? Take it or leave it, s’no big deal.

  Dylan, for some unbeknownst reason—and Gabe wasn’t entirely sure he knew either—had just offered to cart a tree for four miles, or more. Home. With Gabriel. After working a shift. Okay…why? Not that it mattered a jot. Gabe didn’t give a figgy pud why Dylan was coming…but if he didn’t do exactly that, before he left? Gabriel was quite prepared to eat his Santa hat.

  Chapter Six

  Dylan

  “Fuck.” Dylan blinked, staring down at the Snowman calendar on the counter before him.

  It seemed somehow strange, seeing it there—as a tangible thing—when it had become such a presence in his head. It felt very much as if Hatboy had reached inside and filched it. This was preposterous. Clearly.

  1. It was Hatboy’s calendar. Dylan had, in fact, been the one guilty of ‘snaffling’ it. Hatboy had merely reclaimed it.

  2. There was an advent calendar living in Dylan’s head, like a bloody monument to a chance encounter with a stranger.

  3. Hatboy had only opened six windows. This was staggering, not least because Dylan was staring at the proof. Right before his very eyes, on the counter. In the shop. The most ridiculous part of all, was that he felt somehow robbed. Dylan had been so convinced that he saw—knew—Hatboy in some fuckwitted way. The image he’d nurtured in his head now felt as empty as the six vague shapes where the chocolates once nestled. Ever get the feeling you’ve been cheated?

  “Was that a general observation, a verbal ejaculation, or a somewhat strumpety invitatio
n?”

  What the fu— For a moment Dylan had no idea what Hatboy was on about…until he recalled his own reflex reaction to the calendar. He would have been best served by not remembering—far better off—had the question made no sense in the slightest. To human people. The middle option was probably the most accurate…possibly the first one too. The latter? Um, no. Dylan could never have voiced that aloud. Nor, so succinctly. If forced to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but…? Then it could—in retrospect—perhaps be classed…wishful thinking.

  The first one was safest. His head would blow up if he had to enunciate the word ‘ejaculation’. Aloud, in present company. The third would have to be prised from his lips with a crowbar. Oh gawd. Dylan glanced up, hoping to glean something from Hatboy’s expression, just as the meaning of those options hit him. What had been mooted. Aired…as a possibility. As a valid, feasible, contribution to their conversation. Its implications had taken a moment to filter through; Dylan had been too distracted by his own reaction to that unholy trinity of possibilities, to focus on their inference.

  The expression on his little-boy-lost face was so priceless, Dylan couldn’t help but splutter. Hatboy looked stunned, as if his own query had astounded him. Perhaps not so much the words themselves, but the fact he’d uttered them. His eyes widened to anime proportions; forming three perfect circles with the moue of his mouth. Stunned? He was stunning.

  “I…fucknows,” Dylan eventually managed to snort. An honest answer…without dismissing any of the options. A fact—he belatedly realised—could be perceived as lending them all validity.

  “You are a wellspring of obscenity waiting to happen, Mr…” Hatboy frowned—having no name with which to finish that—then settled on, “…dear sir.”

  “Dylan,” he supplied, as casually as possible. In a bid to belie how much he wanted Hatboy to know it.

  How eager Dylan was, to learn his in return, as if that might, somehow, solidify something between them. So that he might know one bloody thing about Hatboy, for certain. Unless he gave a false name, of course, but why the fuck would he do that?

  Why the fuck would he cart a Christmas tree into the shop? Or do, say, pretty much everything he’d done, or said, since the moment we met? Oh.

  “Dylan…” Hatboy inexplicably—unless he was also named Dylan—repeated back. Fuck.

  Every time Hatboy spoke, moved, blinked, Dylan found himself clobbered by a torrent of stuff. One word, and Dylan found himself wondering why it had been uttered, even as his eardrums shivered with pleasure, caressed by its lazy ‘y’. This, as his cock twitched in response, as if Hatboy had yanked its goddamn chain. A thought that really didn’t help matters. This inner drivel was abrupted by an unexpected apology, then eclipsed by a single word.

  “Gabriel.”

  “Gabriel…” It had dripped from Dylan’s lips before he could stop it. It sounded like an echo—was perhaps a confirmation—to assure himself he’d heard correctly, had got it right, knew his name.

  Gabriel. Somehow strangely perfect; a moniker befitting this angel-with-a-dirty-face. Ethereal, yet still as real as Hatboy himself. Rather than plucked from a fairy tale, such as…Rumplestiltskin. F’fucksakes.

  “Why are you toting a tree and a guitar around with you?” Dylan couldn’t help but ask, when that first snippet of knowledge unleashed the floodgates on the thirsting for info front. Dylan was now mixing metaphors; ten minutes in Gabriel’s company were akin to a ride in a runaway minecart.

  His reason? Was more ludicrous than the fact he was doing just that. It featured accidents with kittens in pockets and buggery. At which point, Dylan couldn’t help but wonder if he’d finally flipped, and Gabriel was—in actualité—bemoaning last night’s match results, or the price of tobacco.

  “Have you got far to go?” Dylan heard himself enquire…from far, far away. Over the bloody rainbow, no doubt. That was a rational, reasonable query; all things considered, was it not? Sympathetic, in light of Gabriel’s plight. Far less suspect than tackling him to the floor and demanding to know whereabouts he lived—or better yet—his address. Then Dylan might just have a cat in hell’s chance of finding him, if he…vanished into thin air.

  “That p’raps depends if you’re carrying a tree, guitar, a couple o’carriers, and a stray kitty, I guess. Camden. So, not too far. On the bus.” The latter was accompanied by a wry grimace and rueful shrug.

  “Camden…” Dylan’s heart seemed to stumble, stagger back up, and break into a sprint. Gabriel lived within spitting distance…or thereabouts. A damn sight closer than Cockfosters anyway. Dylan’s next sentence, however, suggested that his brain had been the organ that did a runner. “Are you heading home, when you leave here? Only…I finish work in half an hour and I’m going that way. I could give you a hand…if you like.”

  What the—? Had Dylan known he was about to make that offer, chances were, he would never have been able to stumble his way through it. At least, not without mangling it irredeemably. Irredeemable? Pretty much summed up the state of his sanity. Sense. Sensibilities.

  That cunning plan could have only been conjured somewhere south of Dylan’s belt. There was no other rational explanation. He’d practically invited himself to Gabriel’s house. Had, at the very least, offered to accompany him there. To help carry his stuff. It was mere courtesy—a chivalrous offer—Gabriel could clearly do with some assistance to heft that lot back to Camden. Where Dylan did, indeed, live. He hadn’t invited himself around for…coffee, f’chrissakes.

  Again, it only sounded suspicious to Dylan, because…well, perhaps it was. A little. He liked Gabriel. He did genuinely want to help him. Befriend him. Shag him. Quite why he was arguing all this—trying to justify the unjustifiable—was anyone’s guess. Dylan sure as hell had no idea. He wanted Gabriel. He’d thought of very little else for three days…while fearing that he would never see his Hatboy again. He’d been presented with a legitimate reason to spend over an hour with Gabriel. A simple fairy-lit stroll, homeward bound. He would be bloody stupid to shrug aside a valid excuse to become better acquainted.

  Dylan might soon discover that he didn’t find Gabriel…fascinating, after all. Realise that his Hatboy was not the most enchanting person he’d ever met. Forget the delusions he’d allowed to flourish and get on with the pitiful existence that was his life. Sorted.

  Put that way, it made perfect sense. Thank fuck for that.

  Chapter Seven

  Gabriel

  ‘Are you heading home, when you leave here? Only…I finish work in half an hour and I’m going that way. I could give you a hand…if you like…’

  Would Gabriel like? Strewth, that was understatement of the century. There was nothing he currently wanted more, than Dylan. Full stop. Walking home with him would be a pleasure quite aside from having a spot of help along the way…but. As splendid a prospect as that was? The suspense of knowing not a jot about Dylan’s…intentions, once they reached his doorstep, was going to drive Gabe doolally.

  “What’s your poison?” Gabriel asked—p’raps a tad abruptly—because Dylan frowned in a fashion that suggested Gabe had spoken in tongues. Hmm…Later. Hopefully. “Your tipple?” he amended, waggling an imaginary glass in front of his mouth.

  “Oh, sorry. Rum…why?”

  “Well, it would be most inhospitable, not to offer you a drink after you’ve helped cart this lot back. Unless you need to shoot off, o’course. It’s okay, if you do… ’twas just a thought.” Gabriel shrugged, borrowing Dylan’s own casual-as-yer-like gesture.

  “Oh, well…um, you don’t need to feel obli—”

  “Dylan, I don’t.” Gabriel insisted, cutting off what felt like a discomfited disclaimer, rather than the prelude to a ‘no’. “I just wanted to offer while I’m here, in the shop, cos I’ve only got some crappy lager back at the flat.”

  Quite why Gabe felt so sure Dylan hadn’t been about to refuse outright, he knew not. ’Twas just a feeling. Something that thrummed in the very air
, as if it was charged with fizzy static. A sensation so intense, Gabriel’s skin was all but shrieking. He could scarce hold himself still, rather than cave into the urge to vault the countertop. ’Twould have taken less effort to heft Dylan and the tree home, one over each shoulder. Blimey, that was a one-stop-shop for all Gabe’s festive needs, t’be sure.

  “Oh. Well, if you like…” Dylan mumbled. “I-there’s no need to buy rum, for me, though. I—”

  “S’okay, I want to. It’s the least I can do, in return,” Gabriel butted in, to spare him from whatever he was trying to utter, or not. “I made a fair whack today too, so ’tis no problem on the pennies front,” Gabe assured him.

  “You made a fair whack…” Dylan repeated, appearing most nonplussed; for all the world as if Gabriel had just announced that he’d made a pretty penny betting on the winning dolphin at Camden Lock.