"A full three hours, countless flirtations, and no results," Cullen said in exasperation as he paced back and forth in the one space he could call his own, a small bedroom tucked away in the warren of small apartments where Cullen kept his residence.

Felix sat back on Cullen's bed, his hands behind his head as he grinned. "Let it not be said I did not warn-"

Cullen held up a finger to shush the man from aware. "I am fully aware of your words," Cullen told him.

"`Twas your belief which was lacking," Felix chuckled, "not the truth of it."

"Fie on your poxy teasing," Cullen snarled. "`Tis most difficult, to tread the line between good enough for interest and too good for tutelage. One slip and I risk what little I have managed to gain with him! What is your advice? I pray you have some for me."

With a sigh, Felix pushed himself forward to sit on the edge of the bed. "Two. Items," he said, each word clipped as he held up his thumb and pointer finger. "Item one, you made mention to me that he forewent his doublet and ruff."

"Aye. Aye, that he did, but it meant naught," Cullen groaned as he collapsed next to Felix. "For hours he paced around me, telling me of what I may improve, but his fingers ne'er touched nor brushed up against me. God's blood, having him so near and so very, very far… it makes a man grateful for a stiff codpiece." He glared at Felix as the man snickered. "`Tis all your blame."

"My blame?" Felix asked incredulously.

"You gave me that flyer!" Cullen accused, pointing at the offending item pinned to the wall with a dagger. He didn't even have to look anymore to know exactly where it was, so often did he scrutinize it. "You filled my head with these notions of a man who could rise above his past."

Felix held up his hands in a defensive motion. "Aye, and `twas an idea of which you were sorely in need! No man should drink from dusk to dawn, not and expect to live. I sought to but give you a story to which to aspire."

Cullen's fingers sank into his hair with admittedly theatrical melodrama. "A story is one matter, and a flyer with the profile to drive men mad is another entire! Thus you inspired my final leap from interest to obsession! And that was before I met him," he added with a groan. "All these years when a whore was good enough to calm the need for a rut, and now… What have you inspired, my friend, with that villainous piece of paper?"

Ignoring Cullen's theatrics, Felix stood with care and went to scrutinize the flyer in question. "Not a poor likeness, to my mind, though it doesn't completely capture his… ah…"

"Bombast?" Cullen asked with an edge in his voice, clapping his hand to his own codpiece briefly to make the point. "Nay. It does not. And now that the man himself has been paraded before me…" Burying his face in his hands, he fell back on the bed as he groaned, "`Tis most unfair."

Felix rolled his eyes and worked his way back to the bed slowly to sit at Cullen's side. "Chin up, my saucy swag-bellied scut."

Cullen's hand pointed at Felix in warning, though the man himself remained supine on the bed. "Recall my warning about such insults," he said. "A poxy tongue like that could get you into mischief."

"And yet in the same breath you use one upon me," Felix said with a laugh, which suddenly turned into a cough.

The sound made Cullen sit up hurriedly, a worried expression on his face. "Is aught well?"

Waving away the concern with a flippant snap of his wrist, Felix coughed a few more times, then cleared his throat vigorously. "A complaint of the throat only," he said. "However, you did not let me finish my list." He held up his thumb and pointer.

Though not fully convinced that Felix was, in fact, fully well, Cullen nodded. "`Tis true, his manner of dress was what a man would allow amongst friends, yet `tis more than friendship I seek. Might the second point," he tapped his own finger against Felix's outstretched one, "give me such a hope?"

"Item two," Felix said, waving the finger, "I went to see him today whilst he practiced."

Cullen tilted his head. "I thought you were not so inclined."

"A man can change his mind," Felix protested. "We had a fine conversation, of home and… and of other matters."

"Dare I hope he spoke of me?"

Felix tapped his nose. "The first inquiry from his lips was whether I had, in very deed, sent you yonder. With that confirmed, aye, he had other questions. Of which I shall tell you nothing."

"And here I thought we were the best of friends!" Cullen protested.

"Which is the reason wherefore I shall not tell you. There is more amusement to be gained in this fashion." Felix grinned at him.

Cullen bit his thumb and flung it towards Felix, who collapsed into laughter. "Fie on you again!" he said in mock outrage, then launched himself at the man. After a bout of mock wrestling, they ended up panting on their backs, laughing at the world and all the vagaries therein.

After that, Cullen did feel better, even knowing what dreams would plague him that night, and the aching need those dreams would awaken in him upon his rising.