Absit Omen RPG

Ceph exhaled quietly, and stared off above Ballentyne’s head, at a piece of art hanging in the office anteroom. It was thankfully a scene without enchanted subjects, or the occupants had wandered off. He shoved his hands into his pockets and frowned.

“I stand for not being so quick to judge, or raise a wand” he replied in a quieter tone, lips pressed together. He drew a quick breath, hands balling in his pockets. “I stand for the rights of every being in our boundaries, whether I agree with them or not.”

One hand made it out of his pocket, held stiff before him, drawing out a timeline in the air before him as he spoke: “Last week I stood for a centaur herd, against wixes hunting illegally on their territory, first thing this morning for a house elf whose owner had done unspeakable things to her, and yes, I stand for vampires whose food source is strictly rationed by the government, and vulnerable to interference.”

He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, looking to the door in hope that the Head Healer or her secretary might materialise. “…and I stand for your freedom to access wolfsbane and a saferoom of your choice at full moon.” His hands upturned as if throwing the topic back to Ballentyne and deflated. “I think you’ll probably have enough time to write me a questionnaire before this meeting.”

“Sounds delicious,” Ceph agreed, “I make way for your culinary talents.” He gestured with both arms out to either side, and wiggled his hands in a pantomime gesture. He settled back on one of the stools sat at what passed as a breakfast bar between the kitchen and living room, and tickled Claude’s back with his bare toes.

“… I bumped into Andromeda in the lift the other day.” Virgil shared. Ceph looked up in surprise.
“Hopefully not too hard,” he smiled, softening his tone only because he detected a note of stress in Virgil’s voice. Ceph’s eyes slid to one side, mind busy recalling if his sister had mentioned. As was usual, they’d not seen each other during the week, and she’d not memoed him this information. Maybe it was nothing to worry about.

“I think I’ve been officially warned not to cause problems for you. Or Ari.”
“Oh!”

“Never thought of myself as dangerous.”
“You should never be underestimated, darling.”

His concerned expression softened into a reassuring smile. “I’m sorry if she was… herself… Blunt. She’s always been that way, even when she was a kid.” Andromeda was the one trailing her brothers declaring their mischief in a loud voice and asking why if she didn’t approve of it, or they didn’t include her. “She’s rather protective of family, especially lately.” He gave a sorry little shrug. He loved his sister unconditionally, but he didn’t want her to upset Virgil either.

“Was it incredibly awkward?” He probed, “do you want me to have a word?”

Cepheus laughed happily, though still a little bashfully.
“Takes one to know one, darling.” He went to peck Virgil on the forehead with it, but his boyfriend pulled a face. Ceph had missed the worst of the grumble, so his expression looked crestfallen, assuming it was disgust at him rather than an empty stomach.

“I probably should have eaten something proper at Alohomocha,” Virgil elaborated and Ceph’s lips formed a quiet ‘oh’ in realisation.

“I thought… nevermind…” Ceph waved a hand to dismiss the confusion. “Best relocate to the kitchen, before you wilt on the bathroom floor.” He slid an arm round Virgil and nudged the back of his knee, allowing him to sweep the young blonde back on one foot for an overly dramatic final kiss. It led to giggling at his mischief before they

“If what I’ve got in doesn’t satisfy his highness, perhaps ordering from Rachawadee, or the owl brought a flyer for a new Italian place that has a dragon-fire pizza oven…” Naturally it had been high on the list of places to try for the dragon tamers, keen to confirm if this was a decent side-line for the reserves...

“Oh, you’ll be on your knees, and…” Cepheus leaned in, breath tickling Virgil’s ear as he whispered a request.

He had never felt he could before, but for all of his monogamy and lack of success with landing a partner, Cepheus had come to his senses so to speak. The morning he’d woken on the sofa to find Virgil, and his shirt, gone from the bedroom, he had confessed to his other house guests. His colleagues, friends, who had once or twice… or thrice … invited him to join them for something more had sat him down and told him to stop overthinking and do, quite literally. But Ceph had never had the confidence to match them, but with this new relationship with Virgil with its imbalance of age and expectation he had to lean in to that lust. Virgil wanted it, and he’d not made him regret it so far.

Well, they weren’t wearing costumes or anything…




“I’m wearing your lipstick!” Cepheus wiped at his face, some time later. He held his mouth open to stretch his cheek as he washed a smear of it off. “Not a complaint,” he followed up softly, looking past his reflection and smiling. Water dripped from his fingertips into the sink of warm water below in the modest bathroom. “Probably wearing it elsewhere…” He added, with a glance down his torso, biting his bottom lip between his teeth at the thought. The working week was banished and the weekend had arrived.

“It goes well with your coat, I keep meaning to say,” Ceph added, tugging the plug from the sink and reaching for a towel. Virgil could wear anything and look good in it, lucky sod. Lucky me.

He pressed his face into the towel, inhaling the scent of laundry soap: lavender, eucalyptus and patchouli. He turned on the spot to face Virgil and lowered the towel, hair all on end, smiling somewhat cheekily: “Need anything for your knees?”

“Would it be droll … anything you want would relax me?” Ceph’s lips formed a silent ’oh’ though he really shouldn’t be so surprised. Virgil did tend to know what he wanted and when. His hand on Ceph’s belt did not require words to convey direction.

But yet…

The wireless, alcohol and the sofa.

“Well, depends what comes on the wireless,” Cepheus replied, the fingers of one hand sliding up the back of his neck and through his dark mane of hair, moving to glance at the set to one side of them, “and that sofa makes up in comfort what it lacks in Soho style…”

He gave an exaggerated shrug, all a grin now, as if he’d just realised he had Virgil all to himself. It was odd how his mind came to that sudden conclusion every now and then. Virgil shifted from ‘Ariadne’s friend’ to ‘Ceph’s boyfriend’ and back without him realising. All thought of the week and the crumpled memo evaporated, replaced by Virgil’s face, chin lifted, expectant.

“Right, well, you choose the music,” he leaned down to plant a kiss on Virgil’s lips, and lingered, noses almost touching, “and I’ll mix us something a little harder, unless you weren’t talking drinks…” Ceph’s thumbs slid purposefully up the inside of Virgil’s thighs before he grasped midway.

“I try not to boast.” If Cepheus had known the other sides to Virgil better, as Ariadne did, he might have scoffed at this suggestion, but Virgil was different around him.

“A magnificent ruse.”
“You are revealed!” Cepheus played along, gesturing both hands upwards in mock alarm. Virgil turned on the stool to continue their conversation, pursuing the karaoke comment, though the way he phrased it suggested Virgil had other ideal plans.

“I’m sure you’d be able to hold your own, darling,” Cepheus suggested, reaching out to sweep Virgil’s soft hair from his face which was tilted up to regard him stood over the piano. “It crossed my mind,” he admitted, “I don’t want to bore you by a night in,” his fingers traced Virgil’s cheek, and a forefinger dragged beneath the younger man’s chin as they retreated. Virgil’s skin was smooth, youthful. It made Ceph see the creases in his own face when they ever faced a mirror together. Ones he had generally been able to ignore until youth presented itself for comparison.

“What would be relaxing to you?” He asked, reaching out to lightly hold Virgil’s shoulder. “If you answer bath, slippers and an early night I will have to assume you’re fibbing.” Not even Ceph was considering these, well, maybe just the slippers.

"How's your week been?" Virgil asked, perching upon the piano stool, and lifting the lid on the keys.

"If a week can be simultaneously productive and frustratingly unproductive, then that was mine." Cepheus explained, now free of his coat. He wore a little frown, and emptied his pockets onto the kitchen counter, coins and the unanswered memo forming a neat pile.

But the frown dissipated at the meow of his very-much-not-a-flexible-Frenchman. Ceph scooped Claude up into his arms like a small child, pressing kisses to top of the cat's head and expertly attending to cheeks, chin and whiskers with his free hand.

Claude delighted in the attention, purring and letting out a happy meow, butting his head against his owner's chin. Very much you're home at last, and you're paying me attention! Not that Claude got that jealous when Virgil stole Ceph's attention, his boyfriend was rather adept at showing Claude adequate affection to win over the cat. Thankfully Claude was a sociable sort, and as long as Virgil didn't try to tie bows on and kidnapp him, he could stay.

"It can be particularly exhausting to be around people who feel the need to take firm sides and hold strong opinions on every little thing. Is it like that downstairs? Or are you all so secretive about your projects you can't boast about them?" He gave Claude another kiss on the head and let him down gently onto the sofa.

In that moment he became self-aware at what Virgil was effortlessly playing.

But there's one thing I know
The blues they send to meet me
Won't defeat me, it won't be long
Till happiness steps up to greet me

“Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head…” Ceph sang along gently as Virgil’s adept hands returned to the refrain. “Yes, quite, less about work, more about the weekend.” He clasped Virgil’s shoulders and left a kiss on his cheek, subconsciously evening out the score with Claude, only Virgil had shorter whiskers. They would enjoy the weekend, and everything could wait until Monday.

“Is this your warmup for the karaoke night…?”

Very poetic, were the words which reflexively sprung to Ceph’s mind as Virgil read the lines. But as with most things he thought of first, he shelved them in favour of the better thought which followed. He was leant against the wall beside his front door, diagonally opposite his poetry-reading boyfriend.

Unlike Virgil, Cepheus hadn’t had the time to preen between work and coffee. He had found an unanswered memo in his pocket as he’d come to pay at the counter and the working week still pinched at the start of his weekend. But when he looked at Virgil he was reminded of the weekend, as if the grey working week was setting like the poem described, and the younger wizard’s golden crown rising up the steps to Ceph’s flat was dawn’s arrival.

Virgil was remarking on the text, gesturing, and Cepheus blinked firmly refocusing his attention. He pictured Dalí’s works. There had been some of his sculptures on the South Bank once. Elephants on stilts. The sort of thing he was sure Rascal was into, if he hadn’t been the one to point Ceph in the very direction.

“Not enough melting clocks for you?” He answered, and smiled easily at the apology. “You don’t say? I’d never have noticed.” As Virgil slipped from the railings, Ceph’s shoulders lifted from the brickwork and they met on the top step. He inhaled Virgil’s fresh cologne let it chase the weekday thoughts.

“You may,” he answered in a low tone, “if it will lift your nose out of your book just long enough for me to-“ he finished his sentence with a kiss, gentle, lingering, eyes falling closed. There. That was what it took. The door unlatched, and Cepheus tugged Virgil’s hand inside.

“… from early impressions, you sit on the fence. One gets splinters in their arse if they straddle a fence for too long.”

Cepheus studied his fellow middle manager as she explained.

“It is possible to hold opinions without expressing them,” he shot back quietly, right hand emerging from his pocket to gesture palm uppermost. “Most Department meetings are a competition as to who can have the loudest opinion on whatever’s discussed, whereas I believe personal opinion should be superseded by evidence in many cases.”

“Listening, and understanding the opposing viewpoints is of greater value than jumping straight in with your own opinion when you’re trying to work with Beings.” His fingers danced with his words. “Not to suggest in any way I wish to silence your right to voice your opinion at said meetings, Ballentyne,” he leaned over towards her briefly, “But I don’t go in for that method.” He shrugged his shoulders. 

It didn’t mean he didn’t hold opinions and choose sides when it mattered. But once Bruce, Balfour and Fournier had jumped in to argue over most things, it was more important to get something resolved than prolong the debate.

Cepheus stopped at this sudden response and gave Virgil more of his attention (if that were possible.) He set down his cup and instead wore a coquettish smile. It was still novel to be demanded in such a direct way, but that wasn’t to imply he disliked it.

“But you’ve got some right … there.” His finger flitted over Virgil’s cheek, his lips following, “and there,” the other cheek, “and not sure how you got it here,” his neck, knowing that Virgil grew impatient. “And of course, here…” his thumb pressed on the lower of Virgil’s red lips, his own following.

Tethering his hands on Virgil’s slender waist as they parted he shook his head, looking his boyfriend up and down as if in disbelief. “One might suggest you are quite covered in it, Virgil.” He lifted one hand to gesture at the completely cream-less state of the blonde, playing along. “Would you like me to take care of that for you, darling?” His eyes glanced past Virgil, to the hallway from where they had emerged for breakfast. It seemed like a perfectly good use of a Saturday morning to him, with nowhere to be, no-one else to see.

Drinks. Yes. Drinks. Cepheus was taken at how simultaneously grown up, and yet how young he was once again. He had never taken anyone home to meet his parents - not all in part due to the lack of long term relationships, but because he had grown so apart from them. Permanently so now. Virgil’s parents seemed still closely tied, not just for the sake of a more recent escape from the womb, but for the way Virgil spoke of them, and worked with them beyond his day job. It was a family business.

“Sure,” he heard himself say, hasty to reassure Virgil that he wasn’t against the idea, “no rush,” he added, adopting a warm smile. There was no rush. They were grown-ups. One only really introduced parents when it was serious, at least in the Gamp book. Virgil moved the conversation on, explaining he was distancing himself from the theatre.

“… until things are quieter, you know. … things ever get quieter at the Ministry, though?”

“Hmm,” Ceph gave it serious thought, “I think you have to transfer to one of the quieter offices in Transport, or something mundane on One if you wanted ‘quieter’. Can’t even transfer to the Centaur Office these days.” The one defunct office had been an internal joke for leaving or getting the sack.

“In my experience Mysteries has a way of absorbing as much of your time as you allow it,” he pushed aside his plate, aware of Claude’s continued observation. “You’re fortunate to have any life outside of it.”

Suddenly aware of how critical that sounded (though he was indeed critical), Cepheus inhaled deeply, turning to regard Virgil’s pale face.

“I count myself highly fortunate you have,” he explained, reaching out and arm to encircle his boyfriend’s shoulders, drawing them together. “Don’t let it swallow you over time,” he advised, “you’re far too pretty.” He pressed a kiss on Virgil’s cheekbone and released him.

“More coffee?” 

Virgil painted a vivid picture suddenly, wielding his fork like a knife to be sharpened.

“You’d like her. She always has something to say about art, literature, clothes.” Ceph nodded along, attention taken.

“What about your mu—” The words quite naturally fell out, but they both took an intake of breath and realised themselves. Ceph’s lips twitched from one side to the other quickly, and he glanced away at the fireplace and then down at their breakfast.

“Sorry. It’s terrible, I know, but I keep forgetting.”
“It’s ok,” Cepheus reassured him in a quiet voice, glancing back up to Virgil’s genuine apology judging by that expression.

“N-not that we can’t… if you want, I mean.”
“Thank you,” he replied, in that same quiet voice. “She used to be similar, but always with an air of knowing more than we did,” he honoured Virgil with the truth, and took a quick mouthful, punctuating. 

“And I think I would like her,” he added, after all she’s your mother, “.. your mum, I mean. When we meet… if.. we meet.” He reconsidered his words, going with his second thought as ever, and smiled to Virgil as reassuringly as he could. He didn’t want talk of family to ruin this perfect morning.

Cepheus returned the smile, genuinely happy.

“The best,” he agreed, lifting upturned fingers to Virgil’s chin, thumb tracing the side of his face for a fleeting moment, taking in the beauty of this boy who arrived in the night and made breakfast in the morning.

“What a darling memory,” he remarked, trying to imagine a younger Virgil, though failing to picture his mother other than a vaguely feminine form with possible golden blonde hair like her son. While Virgil’s father might be a famous face, Cepheus felt unfamiliar with the rest of the Carstairs.

“What do you mean by yell about books? Did you disagree or was the music just too loud?”

Breakfasts had been taken separately to his parents often when the Gamps were children. One of the house elves which had preceded Solly would serve them at the kitchen table instead where they could chatter and be noisy as siblings, and as time wore on nobody could rouse Orion before nine in the holidays unless his parents hexed him anyhow.

“About there,” Cepheus replied, dark hair drooped over his forehead as he seized the whisk before tilting the bowl to Virgil for inspection.

“Is Claude allowed a little? Or is he not a French toast man?”
“Uh … you’ll never forget that will you…?” Cepheus shook his head, laughing at the misunderstanding about Claude being a cat.

“I’m sure he’d love to lick the cream off you…” Ceph winked and nodded to the back of the sofa. An attentive black and white cat was poised there, whiskers forward. It offered a high enough a vantage point to watch what the wizards were doing in the kitchen. Claude’s fur brushed up against the edge of the kitchen counter which divided the two aspects of the room, and he rearranged his paws impatiently, knowing very well he couldn’t set a paw on it.

“I will if he doesn’t,” Ceph leaned over to place a kiss on Virgil’s cheek, “and you get to choose where from.”

He handed over the bowl, resisting the temptation to deposit a dollop of cream on the end of Virgil’s pretty nose. A happy, loved smile held his face as their eyes met. This was far more effort for breakfast than Cepheus would have ordinarily indulged in alone, but breakfast for two made it all the more worth it, especially as Virgil was a superior cook.

Virgil shifted to lay on his front. Ceph could more easily see how tired he was, dark shadows under his eyes. He felt he should tuck Virgil back in and leave him to sleep all morning. His eyelids drooped a little as Virgil stroked his hair, enjoying the attention. A smile tugged at his mouth, while a morning shadow darkened his chin.
“Well, you always know where to find me,” he replied, stretching his arms up and out above them. A musky morning smell hung between them, not unpleasant. “And I’ll always listen.” Well, once I’m awake.

He slipped an arm beneath the blankets again, a hand coming to rest on the small of Virgil’s back as they gently kissed. These days it felt more familiar, adjusted, past that initial, almost clumsy state where one did not know the other well enough. Two and a half weeks, trying not to rush.

“What do you desire of me today, then?” Ceph asked, blinking slowly, studying Virgil’s somewhat serious expression. “A shoulder to sleep on, breakfast, a walk, a little music…?” His thumb caressed Virgil’s back. “Or are you meant to be rehearsing?”

Virgil kept such a busy timetable it was a wonder he managed to fit in more than those flings he’d once described to Cepheus last month. His hand drifted a fraction lower, but returned. It wasn’t the moment to suggest that kind of thing, given what had just been shared. More the sort of morning of tea, hot toast, arms looped around each other as they shared stories. He couldn’t read minds, so he’d have to rely on the tricks mere mortals used to predict. He gave in to the temptation to kiss his boyfriend again, glad he had woken up beside him.