The light dimmed as Cullen ducked into the bolthole, but there remained enough to see the man sitting on the mess of blankets piled atop some straw pallets. Face drawn in an expression of concern, Cullen stepped forward, hunching instinctively to protect his head from the low ceiling. "Dorian?" he ventured softly. "Is aught well?"

The man stirred, then turned to look up at Cullen. "I see someone has told tales of my health," he said, managing a light tone.

Cullen sighed and settled onto the ground next to him. "And did he tattle thusly on mine as well?"

"What? You are injured?" Dorian turned to Cullen, a look of concern on his face. "Where?"

"Ah, so he did not," Cullen chuckled, then pointed to his arm. "`Tis but a scratch, truly, and well tended. I have yet to hear more detail about your own."

Settling his fingers lightly on Cullen's sleeve, enough to feel the bandage beneath, Dorian made a soft noise of disgruntlement. "My shoulder only. Wrapped well by my countryman above. Interesting fellow," he noted. "Are he and the Turk…?"

Cullen blinked, then laughed. "Those two? Nay, most definitely not. Just the bond of life's blood owed more than anything, I should think. Krem helps Boğa live in London, where his kind are rarely welcome. At least Krem doesn't stick out quite as much as a Turk."

That earned a chuckle from Dorian. "We do tend to attract attention, don't we? Even the more subdued of my countrymen make the most animated Englishman appear as a corpse."

"Tush! We are not nearly as bland as you do imply," Cullen scolded. "Do you think me so very dull?"

"Ah, but you are an actor, hmm?" Dorian teased him. "Who knows what you really are, hmm?"

There was… something in Dorian's tone, a seriousness which belied the words, that gave Cullen pause. He struggled for a moment with how to respond, whether to simply let it slide, but in the end decided to address the matter. "Speak your mind."

Dorian looked away, suddenly fascinated by the sacks of grain stacked neatly in the corner. "I do bear a certain pride in my chosen profession," he said quietly. "Enough that only self-indulgent ignorance will allow me to not notice when someone is behaving in a manner not true to their nature. Earlier, when you confronted my father… `twas no facade or act." Finally he looked back at Cullen, who wanted to dwell more upon the self-indulgent ignorance part of Dorian's comment, before his next words scattered that thought to the far winds. "You were a dangerous man. Or, as it may be… more than that."

The words hung between them as Cullen took a deep breath. The eye contact proved to be too much, and soon he averted his gaze. "Aye. Far more."

"Of all men, I shall be the last to judge you," Dorian told him softly. "You need tell me nothing, I assure you. In fact," he continued, deliberately lightening the tone, "`tis good to know that you came by your sword skill honestly rather than through the stage. I fretted over your talent, yet now, at least, I need not fear there is a secret school of superior sword skill here in England which puts any of the continent to shame."

Cullen found himself chuckling. "A secret school of superior sword skill?" he asked incredulously.

"I have a way with words," Dorian said, putting a modest hand on his chest. "I am an actor, after all."

"And such a meek man elsewise, to be certain," Cullen chuckled.

"Watch your tongue," Dorian quipped. "Why, I am the epitome of humility and grace."

"As you say," Cullen said with a grin, relaxing a small amount, if not completely. The question had been broached, and, to Cullen's mind, still hung between them… yet he simply was not prepared to discuss it yet. "I would argue 'grace and beauty' 'twould be more accurate, but mayhap I am biased in the matter."

A slow smile came to Dorian's face, and he leaned close. "Glad am I to hear it," he murmured. This close, even in the dim light, Cullen saw his eyes glance down, just before they closed as Dorian leaned in to claim a kiss.

Cullen's own eyelids fell shut, and his arm reached around Dorian, pulling him closer. The edge of relief that Dorian's wound wasn't truly serious finally bled over into an overwhelming response to the events of the day. The caress of lips quickly turned from tender to intimate, and Cullen's embrace became a means to lay them both down amidst the nest of blankets.

He recognized the urgency for what it was: danger and fear causing each to cling to the other, finding confirmation of life through touch which words simply could not provide. Passion, though tremendous, remained a poor substitute for the closeness they sought in each other now.

Alas, excitement could only carry them so far before exacting its own price at last. Once they were supine, Cullen felt Dorian's movements slow. When the man stifled a yawn mid-kiss, Cullen simply chuckled and moved to kiss his forehead even as Dorian mumbled an apology. "The day has been most unforgivably long," Cullen murmured. "I would not object to some sleep myself."

"Truly, I am starting to wonder at what force works against us," Dorian sighed in complaint. "Were I any less weary…" He continued to grumble as Cullen lay on his back and wrapped his arm around Dorian, pulling him close, and ended his tirade with, "...and sleeping in my clothes! Barbaric!"

Cullen just grinned as he let his head relax onto a small bag of buckwheat provided as a pillow. "Would you prefer naked?" he asked idly.

"Do not tempt me on the matter," Dorian groaned softly as he lay his head on Cullen's chest. "Mayhap I would, but am too tired to remove them."

Cullen glanced down, unsure if the man were serious. When a wave of weariness washed over him, however, he simply patted Dorian's hip and relaxed once more. "Let us to slumber. Mayhap later we can redress the matter."

"I bloody well hope so, if you will forgive my English," Dorian muttered under his breath.

With a smile, Cullen reached up and lightly brushed back Dorian's thoroughly mussed hair from the man's forehead. "To sleep," he said, close enough to slipping away himself that it came out half an order.

Dorian's soft chuckle chased him into dreams.

Cullen braced himself as Alrik drew his hand back and then struck the man Cullen was restraining full across the face. "You will tell us where the rest of them are, you know," Alrik told the captive with a sneer. "It's been a while since we've had a nice bonfire at Smithfield."

"Mayhap let him stew a while?" Cullen suggested when he felt the man sag in his grip. "You should have pulled your blow that time." Which you most assuredly know, Cullen added grimly to himself.

"Are you questioning my methods, Rutherford?" Alrik asked darkly. "We're doing God's work, with the Queen's blessing. That means we do whatever it takes."

Firming his jawline, Cullen nodded. "Mayhap there is a better method. Thrask and I believe-"

Alrik surged forward, his hand burying itself in Cullen's shirt and pulling him close enough to smell Alrik's breakfast in his beard. "God's work does not get done by the faint of heart, Rutherford." He shook Cullen, then pushed him back, making him drop the man he held to the ground. "Now pick up that Protestant trash and get me someone who can still talk." Turning away, he walked over to speak to some of the others, idly shaking out his hand as if getting it ready for the next round.

As Cullen turned to gather the unconscious man Alrik had been 'questioning', he found Thrask already there, the crest of the Tudors woven into his doublet smudged with blood and dirt. "Alrik is…" Cullen started, then shook his head.

Thrask simply nodded. "I know." Heaving the Protestant onto his shoulder, he gestured Cullen closer. "We need to talk," he said so quietly that Cullen, only two feet away, barely heard him.

Cullen frowned slightly. "Aye, as you will," he said with equal quiet. "We shall meet as before?" They'd slipped away in the dead of night to have an extended talk, and no one had seemed to notice.

Thrask nodded. "As before."

After that, they were silent as they took the man back to the holding cells. As Thrask lay the unconscious man down on a cot, Cullen moved to where a cluster of prisoners awaited interrogation or burning and pulled at the nearest arm. His stomach still churned, but he had God's work to do, as Alrik kept reminding him.

"Cullen."

He started and stared down at the face of the man he'd grabbed. He found wide grey eyes above a curled mustache staring up at him, and he felt his heart skip a beat. "Do I… know you?"

"Wake up, Cullen!"

Cullen gasped and opened his eyes to complete darkness. He tensed when he realized a hand covered his mouth, but the warm weight pressed along his body coupled with a familiar tickle at his ear eased his concern.

As Cullen fought to regain control of his breathing, Dorian whispered, "I hear arguing above. Needs must we be silent."

Cullen nodded to show he understood, and closed his eyes again, though it was a trifle unnecessary given the light was already extinguished. As he concentrated, he heard the voices to which Dorian referred above.

"The men were last seen in your company, Turk," he heard an irritated voice say in accusation. "You either know where they are, or are harboring them yourself."

Boğa grunted. "Mayhap you need to check your ears for some sort of excretion, as I have already informed you of their location. Away. And they were not foolish enough to tell me their destination."

Cullen took a breath, then tapped Dorian's hand, which pulled away. Rising into a crouch, he moved closer to the door so that he would be able to hear with more clarity. Soon after he felt Dorian press up against him, that damnable mustache again tickling at his ear. It took all his strength to suppress a shiver, but he could do little about the rush of blood, either above or below. Trying to ignore the sensation, he returned his focus to the conversation above, his heart sinking when he heard the stamp of feet.

"You break my floor, I'll break your head," Boğa warned, though he didn't sound too concerned. "Or better yet, I'll hire a crier and have him go stand in front of your boss' house to tell London how you've been fornicating with his wife these past three years."

The stomping immediately ceased. "You would not dare."

"Try me," Boğa growled.

Cullen grinned, laughing silently as the man who had been threatened obviously struggled with the dilemma Boğa had given to him. Finally there was more stomping, but towards the direction of the door. As it creaked open, Cullen heard the man say, "To the docks! We'll catch them before they sail out." Then the door slammed shut, and there was silence.

Dorian exhaled slowly, having obviously held his breath, and put his head on Cullen's shoulder. "That rules out the docks for a few days, then," he said quietly.

They both tensed as more noise came from above, of something being moved across the floor before the hatch opened. A series of knocks made Cullen relax and turn to Dorian. "'Boğa," he explained as he rose slowly. "`Tis not the first time either of us have hid in a bolthole."

Dorian chuckled and followed suit. "Mayhap later you could regale me, hmm?"

At that moment, the door opened, letting in Boğa with a dim lantern. "You two are awake. Good. So you heard all that?"

"Sufficient to be aware we need to remain hidden," Cullen said with a nod.

Boğa grunted and set the lantern on a hook. "Needs must I venture forth and meet with some colleagues of mine, in the docks and other places. Krem is already taking a message to that friend of yours. Felix, right?"

Cullen raised an eyebrow. "Aye. How did you- Boğa, did I not request you remove your scrutiny from me?"

Unrepentant, Boğa shrugged his broad shoulders. "Be content that I did not, or your lover would be on his way back to Italy by now." Ignoring Cullen's sudden fierce blush and Dorian's smile, he dropped a sack on the ground and then moved to rummage through some of the items in the room. Pulling out a brazier, he turned and set it near the bag. "There, in case you want to cook anything. I'm going to cover the hatch again in case Sir Curious returns, but I do not expect him to do so." He pointed to one corner of the room. "If the need arises, then answer it. Lime and ash is there. I'll check in on you when it's safe, but you should have everything you need. I even threw in bandages and suchlike, if you need to change yours."

"You have my gratitude, Boğa," Cullen said sincerely. "I do not estimate this plight will last overlong. Two, three days, mayhap?"

"That is my hope. Anyhow, I will see you anon - I need to make sure those blundering fools have something to find which is not you, yet still believe they fulfill their duties." With a final grin and a nod, he turned and ducked through the comparatively small doorway, and soon enough they heard the hatch lower into place, followed by the sound of carpet and furniture shifted to cover it once more.

"I quite like him," Dorian observed with an easy laugh.

Cullen nodded and knelt next to the bag, removing and setting aside most of the contents as he made a mental tally. "Boğa is quite the clever man. I was most fortunate to have made his acquaintance, particularly given the circumstances at the time."

"I admit to a certain curiosity as to the meeting," Dorian observed idly. "A Turk and an Englishman? It must have been a most unusual situation."

God's blood. Cullen froze, realizing he'd inadvertently led the conversation precisely to that which he wanted to avoid. His eyes closed, and he bowed his head for a moment. "Aye, `twas."

He started when a hand fell on his shoulder, and he turned to find Dorian crouching at his side. "You do not have to tell me," the man said softly. "This I swear. Yet I do not wish it to become a shadow between us which you cannot banish, either."

Between… us? He couldn't help but enjoy Dorian's use of the term, yet it wasn't enough to ease what was necessary. Breathing in deeply through his nose, he pushed his breath out through his mouth before nodding. "Aye, you have the right of it.." He glanced at Dorian, then frowned when he noticed the way the man kept his arm tucked close to his body despite the awkward position. "How fares your injury?"

"Sharp eyes," Dorian accused him. "It pains me a little, I confess."

Grabbing the bandage and a small skin of the stuff he recognized as Boğa's wound cleaner, he nodded back to the blankets. "Come, we can attend to both at once."

Dorian reached out to hook his finger in Cullen's collar. "Only if we are both equally clothed."

"Come," Cullen repeated through the burning of his cheeks. "It shall be as you say."

A few minutes later saw them both sitting on the blankets, naked from the waist up, as Cullen dressed Dorian's wound again. While he worked, Cullen spoke softly. "I was a soldier for Her Majesty Queen Mary, designated to enforce the Heresy Acts by order of the Queen and by the will of God." It was the bare beginning, and it might have served well enough on its own, but Cullen felt compelled to continue. He spoke of hunting down Protestants, of the questionings, of the burnings - and worse. "I believed with all my heart for a long while that we did God's work," he said softly. "And God blessed the Queen, did He not? Surely `twas divine right."

"Having grown up only a few hundred miles from the Papal Seat, I can understand such reverence." Dorian regarded Cullen's face, his brows drawing together. "You continue to surprise me. I never would have thought you a Catholic."

"Nor I you, save that I know from whence you came," Cullen pointed out.

"True enough, I suppose." Dorian reached over and laid his hand on Cullen's thigh, squeezing lightly in comfort. "Go on. This has to do with how you met Boğa, does it not?"

Cullen nodded. "A new Captain was sent out to watch over my squad, a man by the name of Otto Alrik. It became clear that he was there because he enjoyed it - the hunts, the burning, and especially the questioning. It was getting harder by then to get a sentence, you see, and he… found ways. To make them confess, to make others confess… My doubts grew greater, as did those of a friend of mine, another of the Queen's soldiers by the name of Thrask. I did abide, however. I had sworn my oath to God and Queen and England. But then Thrask pulled me aside one e'en." He swallowed, and his hands, in the process of wrapping the new bandage around Dorian's shoulder, froze. "He informed me that his daughter was Protestant, and had been taken. By Alrik." He swallowed, the bile fighting to rise. "Personally."

When he fell silent, Dorian did not prompt him to continue. Instead, Dorian finished the work on his own shoulder, then slid closer to Cullen, wrapping an arm around his waist without saying a word.

Eventually Cullen spoke. "Thrask and I tracked him down to his… his lair. `Tis the only word I can use. We slew him and others who were with him. We got her out of there, though I daresay she shall never again walk in a proper fashion3. I was injured, though." He pointed to the scar which marked his upper lip, then the one which slashed down the left side of his chest. "I told him to go on ahead, that she was the priority. When they found the dead men, `twas my trail they followed first. Caught up to me near Smithfield, outside London."

"Let me guess," Dorian interrupted. "A rather large individual came to your rescue, I take it?"

Cullen smiled at the description. "Krem once said that `twas the same way for their first meeting, as well. A poor habit, so he says. A great habit, according to Boğa."

Dorian laughed. "I find I cannot complain, given the results."

"Nor I," Cullen agreed. "At any rate, Boğa convinced me that acting would be the most suitable occupation to hide from any pursuit."

An immaculate eyebrow rose. "And what, pray tell, was his reasoning? I would have considered that to be the exact opposite pastime to select for someone wishing to remain out of the public eye."

Cullen grinned. "His reasoning was that new actors, particularly poor ones, rarely are selected to be put before an audience, but at least that way I would be seen frequently by many while being the intimate of a select few."

A thoughtful expression came to Dorian's face. "A cogent argument," he conceded.

"Once Elizabeth took the throne, God bless her, I stopped pretending to be such a poor actor and actually was able to sustain myself. From there, you can draw the lines yourself, I would surmise." Cullen sighed, surprised at how much better he felt to have the truth laid bare between them. "And that is that. Until Felix gave me a paper concerning a certain up-and-coming Italian actor, I had a relatively mundane existence as a moderately successful actor, my past well and truly forgotten by all but myself." And my nightmares.

"And what," Dorian asked, moving closer, "did your acquisition of that paper signify?"

Cullen paused, contemplating the explanation. "The man Felix first met… was not a man of whom I am proud. `Twas luck, not fortune, which brought me to his side, and `twas his honest heart which brought him to mine after." Cullen couldn't help but chuckle softly. "We've helped each other a great deal since he first arrived in London. He is a rare man."

"Aye, that he is," Dorian said softly. "My greatest regret following my departure from Italy was leaving him. He has the most gentle spirit of any man of my acquaintance." He sighed. "His father would be more like him, save for the weight of his title. And my father-" His mouth snapped shut, and he closed his eyes for a moment. "But enough of that. Tell me more about this paper you mentioned."

"No quarter given, no evasion allowed?" Cullen smiled as Dorian's eyes opened. "You are a cruel man."

"And yet you persist in delaying the answer," Dorian said, then nudged Cullen. "Unless you fear to vouchsafe it to me."

For a moment more, Cullen considered the matter, slowly finding the words and fitting them neatly into his head. Finally he turned and took Dorian's hand, bringing it up to his heart. "There was a time when I fell into the depths of depravity, seeking to numb myself from what I had seen, and the acts I had performed. `Twas easy to pretend to be the struggling actor in such a case, when mine eyes would not focus `pon the face of the man but two feet away. Yet I tired of that, and the paper… it gave me hope."

Cullen gently brought Dorian's hand up so he could place a tender kiss upon the knuckles. "When Felix first made of it a gift to me, he said it was proof that a man could escape his past, could rise above any shackle or chain which held him down. I held to the words, though I knew not the details behind them, and did cling to that image with a fierceness which carried me through the times when I wished to fall back into the mud. At first, I knew only that the smudged coal profile represented a man who had done what I wished to do. As time passed, as I left behind the debauchery and degradation, it came to mean more. I know not when regard turned to fascination, but I cannot deny that the yearning became for more than merely a hope for a similar escape. I tell you true, `twas no rhyme nor reason beyond inchoate yearning. Never before had a man turned my head, nor any woman. I thought myself unworthy of such regard, given my past deeds."

"And is that yet your belief?"

The question made Cullen look up to find Dorian regarding him with a gentle smile. "Mayhap I could learn elsewise," he said in a hushed tone.

"Mayhap I might be acquainted with the perfect mentor for such an endeavor." Dorian's thumb smoothed over the stubble on Cullen's chin. "Yet I interrupt. Pray continue."

Cullen couldn't help but smile at the touch, even as his cheeks heated once more. "Ah, then came the day when Felix informed me that you would be in London. Of a sudden, all of those hopes and ambitions flew together in a rush. I was determined to meet with you, to see for myself what manner of man you were, and that determination flared into something unexpected when I did lay mine eyes upon you." He stopped and looked down at the hand clasped in his own, wondering if Dorian could see his blush resurge in the dim light.

"Can you give a name to this unanticipated sensation?" Dorian asked.

"Desire," Cullen said, voice soft yet firm. "Unexpected, unanticipated, unbidden… and unmistakable."

Dorian pulled their joined hands towards him so he could lay a soft kiss in Cullen's palm. "Verily, then we are not so dissimilar from each other after all."

Cullen's heart raced, and not only for the soft lips which now caressed his fingers. "I am no gently born lord, nor scion of a wealthy house. I am rough-hewn and ill-used, and have little to offer a man of your talent and breeding."

Though the man didn't immediately answer, Cullen knew Dorian had heard him by the way his breath stopped for a moment before he drew back a bit. Tilting his head as he looked down at Cullen's hand, Dorian murmured, "Mayhap I seek not a marble statue come to life, but a man with an understanding of the nature of a life ill-suited to him. A man to hold, but also a man who can support." His long fingers stroked over Cullen's hand slowly. "These callouses linger from deeds far heavier than tilling the soil or moving a backdrop."

"Aye, that they do," Cullen confirmed, a bit taken aback by the seeming tangent.

"Most men of talent and breeding, in my experience, prefer…" Dorian paused, then exhaled a shuddering breath. "They seek not a partner, someone of whom they can be proud, or taken to the proper parties, or to church. Nay, men of talent and breeding only want another man for pleasure. A dirty, dark secret that can never mean more than a night, or a few nights, of sexual bliss." When he looked up at Cullen, his eyes were haunted. "A decorative piece to hang on your arm at certain kinds of improper parties, if he be comely enough. And if you be a lord, and he but a lord's son, mayhap that pretty lord's son would be but an ornament to be shared with another lord. After all, it is a party, and parties are for pleasure, and nothing more."

Cullen instinctively reached out and dared to brush his fingers through Dorian's hair, mussed as it was from sleep. "You shall never return to that," he told Dorian in a fierce tone. "Not while I have breath."

Though his eyes gleamed suspiciously in the dim light of their lantern, Dorian chuckled softly, biting his lower lip so that his teeth tickled at the little patch of hair just below it. "God knows what you must think of me now, what with this entire affair. It could end so very poorly for both of us, if Father has his way." He looked up at Cullen, brows pinched together and gaze serious. "I do not know if I could forgive myself, if aught happened to you because of who I am."

"Not who you are," Cullen insisted, pulling their hands back to himself so he could do as Dorian had and partake of the sweet sweat of his palm. "You are the man you have chosen to be. That I believe with all my heart."

"Then I have no choice but to think the same of you, tesoro," Dorian murmured, leaning closer as he claimed Cullen's second hand and brought it to his lips. Cullen shivered as the mustache brushed over his knuckles, and a flush of warmth washed over him as the man's delectably soft mouth pressed against them. "And you have chosen wisely."

"Have I, in very deed?" Cullen murmured, unrepentant now with his own staring at the man.

A wicked mirth danced in Dorian's eyes as he met Cullen's gaze, and he abandoned the hand to lean closer. "You are with me, are you not?" Dorian murmured.

Cullen shuddered as his eyes closed. "You… You make a sound argument," he managed.

"I would argue," Dorian whispered, his breath pouring over Cullen's lips, "that my preference would be for you to make a sound." For the barest moment, Cullen felt soft lips touch his, and then they moved along his cheek as Dorian's arm wrapped around his waist and pulled him abruptly closer. Cullen gasped as Dorian's hushed tones and devilish mustache teased at the shell of his ear. "A multitude of rather loud ones."

When Dorian's hand landed on his thigh and a strong thumb stroked downwards, Cullen gasped, "God's blood!"

"My interest lies more in yours," Dorian breathed as his hand slowly moved up Cullen's leg in a firm stroke. "And where it is flowing at the moment."

Cullen instinctively splayed his legs a bit wider, inviting Dorian to further intimacy. His heart was pounding hard, yet not due to the touch alone. Knowing that Dorian still desired him, felt that Cullen was worthy of that kind of attention even after he had revealed so much, it made his breath shorten and his heart swell. When Dorian's hand nudged against his codpiece, he moaned softly. Dorian's lips began to move along his cheek, the brush of his lips matched below by the slow caress of his fingers along Cullen's length through the fabric.

When Dorian's lips claimed his, Cullen's fingers tightened in the man's hair to pull them ever so slightly closer. When roaming fingers pulled that damned bit of cloth out of the way and settled around what it found beneath with a firm squeeze, Cullen's hips jerked forward as he moaned into Dorian's mouth.

"Aye," Dorian breathed, "precisely that sort of sound."

Whatever reply Cullen might have made was deflected as they both heard the door open above and footsteps of at least two people enter. Both of the men held their breath as the footsteps crossed the floor, and then they heard the sound of scraping furniture once more as the trapdoor was revealed.

"Testa di cazzo," Dorian said fervently as he tugged Cullen's codpiece back into place while glaring upwards, "prendila in culo da un ciuccio imbizzarrito!"

"I have not a clue as to what you just said, but I agree wholeheartedly," Cullen groaned as he forced himself to stand. After some quick adjustments, he grabbed one of the swords hanging from the hook next to the entrance and tossed it to Dorian, who caught it easily, before taking the other one and drawing it from its sheath, listening as the men came down the stairs. When the curtain was pulled aside, his sword was ready, pressed against the leading man's neck before they got more than a foot inside. "Remove your hood," he said softly, "or I press the blade home."

"Cullen," the man breathed as he reached up slowly with his hand and flung the hood back, revealing a flushed Felix. "No time to waste, you have to go."

"Felix?" That was Dorian, who rushed forward to catch him as the man sagged.

"He's right," Krem called from behind Felix. "We have to go, now. Little bird gave me a tip, one I trust."

Cullen nodded, not wasting any more time as he sheathed the blade and attached it to his pants. He quickly put everything they might need into the pack Boğa had brought down and slung it over his shoulder, given they didn't know what was to come, but there was no further argument.

As they emerged from below, Boğa was just entering through the front door, arm full of cloth. Tossing both men a large cloak, he said, "Put these on. I've a friend who will aid you. Krem'll take you there."

"But Felix-" Cullen started, even as he and Dorian quickly put on the voluminous cloak.

"I'm staying with him," Felix said, pointing to Boğa. "Don't have the breath to keep up. Might as well be useful. Mayhap I can even prevent bloodshed, if they're countrymen."

Boğa grunted as Cullen frowned. "Don't worry about us, boy. I don't believe in throwing lives away. You know that. We just need to buy you some time. Speaking of which, move. Now." He stepped aside, and Krem headed to the door.

"Felix," Dorian said softly, slowing as he passed his friend to grasp his forearm.

"Heft a drink for me, Dorian." Felix squeezed Dorian's arm firmly. "And have faith." Reaching out, he tugged the hood of Dorian's cloak into place, then pushed Dorian after Cullen.

When the men were out of the door, Krem gestured them to follow. After only a few dozen paces, Krem suddenly grabbed both men and pulled them into the narrow space between two buildings whose roofs were so close as to touch each other. All three men pressed into the side of the building, and Cullen was grateful for Krem's sharp eyes as he heard the approaching footsteps.

A crowd of men walked by, faces grim in the flickering light of the torches they held. Cullen tried to get more than a passing impression of them, but they moved so quickly that they were out of sight before he could get more than an impression of the sigil on the arms of their uniforms, but it was enough of a glimpse to confirm that the Duke had tracked them down.

Dorian's reaction as he hissed, "Stronzo," was easy to comprehend, even if Cullen did not know the word.

"Our departure was well timed," Krem said softly. "Press on." He moved away from the wall, leading them deeper into the warrens of the buildings around Boğa's house.

Cullen and Dorian exchanged a glance before following. As they followed Krem, Cullen felt a hand seek his out, and he quickly took hold of the offering and squeezed it. "I am here for you," he said quietly, and heard the other man take a shaky breath as he nodded.

"Grazie, tesoro. That means… a great deal to me, right now."

Both men fell silent after that, their hands never straying far from the other's as they wended their way through the dark London night.

Italian translations:

Testa di cazzo - Lit: 'Head of a penis', or dickhead
Prendila in culo da un ciuccio imbizzarrito - Lit: 'Take it in your ass from a runaway donkey'. Dorian was a bit upset.
Grazie, tesoro - Lit: 'Thank you, treasure', but tesoro is better translated to 'darling'