Johann chuckled at the mention of reintroductions at breakfast.
"If we make it there." He uttered, a grin returning, and the tension in his grasp vanishing as if it had never been there. He hoped to Merlin that he was exhausted enough to sleep in a strange place, beside Balfour and whatever hour they made it to bed, otherwise he would be dead on his feet by the end of Monday.

"Very well, and gosh, long day for you. Best be early to bed tomorrow." His eyes briefly darting ahead of them, still finding Balfour's gaze a little intense when it fixed him like that. He never quite knew where to look - at home it led to things. He had the irenic eyes until there was that puckish glint that suggested intent. Either way, Johann took delight in returning it, if he felt bold enough.

"I wouldn't call it clothes, Balfour," Johann laughed, "I'll be shedding feathers, but you can tear the rest of them off if you're in a state to, I promise." He followed Balfour's gaze to the window display of coats, tugging again at the lead as yet another lamppost claimed attention to the dog on the other end.

"Swim?" Johann replied, the shift in his tone from the jovial suggestion of moulting feathers was enough to reveal his trepidation of that. "Why would you need to swim out to a tree? Trees don't grow in lakes, unless they're willows… as far as I recall my limited herbology?" He was baffled. "Hmm.." Johann frowned at Balfour playfully, "You're having me on aren't you? Trees in lakes…"

He looked ahead, negotiating two Muggles heading towards them, the dogs skirting round them with quick glances and sniffs at their heels as they passed by, all sharing the pavement.

"You're serious?" Johann followed up as they were clear of being overheard. "I'll drown!" He looked genuinely mortified.

He was going to hold Johann to that promise.

Balfour didn't have much a chance to say as much, so startled he was by the reaction to their tree burning tradition. He could feel his smile widen, teeth bared, a hint of the predatory somewhere behind it. Was this a weakness? The linguist did not take to water. It wasn't the worst one to have in the middle of a metropolis.

"You're surprised by trees in lakes?" he laughed through the incredulity and stifled it immediately as the man and woman in front came to pass, their faces vaguely familiar. A polite dip of the head. The silent greetings of nearly strangers beneath night skies and yellow lamplights.

Whiskey had disappeared into the darkness a street ahead, where a row of the streetlights didn't appear to be working. Peculiar. All shadow and glimpses of shop windows, pavement. It was only through instinct that he knew the dog was leading them. He looked at Johann and bumped shoulders with him affectionately.

"It's a tree on a wee isle on the lake." Balfour explained, releasing the other wizard's hand and wrapping an arm around his lanky waist instead, as they walked. "There are stepping stones, swimming's a precaution. Would you really drown?" he was curious now.

A fledgling idea at the back of his mind wanted very much to take Johann for a dip in the estate lake. It was his skin. It looked marvellous in moonlight. Not that this was the right season for that. Balfour cleared his throat - as well as the image - and glanced away while they entered into shadow. Slivers of his face showed.

"Not that we'd let you, mind. I used to spend my summers swimming there," he continued in a softer voice. "My grandfather took me with him to burn the tree when I was a boy. It's a good tradition. A way of leaving the past behind."

Few things were so final (and yet cyclical) as watching something go up in flames.

Balfour's hand released, and Johann's initial dismay at this was instantly reversed as he drew closer instead. His own arm was initially trapped, not anticipating the pull around his waist.
"… would you really drown?" His lover asked, and Johann gave a perplexed look as he considered the possibility.
"I imagine self-preservation would intervene," He mused, a little concerned at the prospect "depending on how many sheets to the wind I was if I fell in. Those Scottish tarns are bound to be cold at any time of year."

He couldn't even recall the last occasion he'd had need to swim. If one could call it swimming. His mind graced him with a flurry of memories of flailing in water while on his travels, a feeling of being somewhat paralysed and heavy while panicking. None of them had been intentional swims, he didn't partake in intentional swimming at all. He'd never really been interested in learning.

"Can we burn the whole forest?" He asked, sounding serious despite a raise of his eyebrows. He sought out a home for his arm around Balfour's waist, lifting it up and over the other wizard to do it, narrowly missing Balfour's head, spatial awareness waning with his energy.

"I jest," he clarified, once his fingers found Balfour's ribs faintly through the peacoat. He adopted a lighter tone, fearing he might be perceived as a closet pyromaniac for the comment, and he most certainly did not want to cause destruction to the grand Spectre estate! "Fire has an ability to bifurcate reaction, its magnificence either comforting or terrifying. It does depend on the context it is found, but the burning of the tree - once not drowned on the journey should be both. A year past, the time over, but the anticipation of the unknown beyond." He looked back to Balfour, realising he was postulating to the path before them rather than paying attention to his partner's reaction.

"Though my year is all the better already for knowing you." He admitted, gaze lingering just a moment, before he glanced away self-consciously at saying something like that. They didn't speak to quite a depth about their relationship ever, Johann greener for explaining his feelings, still getting to grips with it all, and Balfour not one to express his own as he had admitted very early on.

"Forgive me," he spoke quietly, as if apologising for being so sincere. His stride fell out of step with Balfour's a moment, stepping his right foot in front of his left to turn towards the other wizard, bringing the procession of beasts and men to a sudden halt beneath the extinguished street lamps. "Using words…" He uttered almost inaudibly as they stood far too close, dogs circling them quizzically.

He hummed pleasantly in agreement with the wintry qualities of Scottish tarns, unable to help the mixture of pride and embarrassment that followed any remark on his native landscape.

But burning the whole forest? That sounded like something Ira Almasy would suggest, lightning his cigarette in the cool shade of a tree. They might have been in the dark but Balfour turned his head and hid his smile, so amused he was at Johann's sense of humour - far too endearing to be spoiled by its awkwardness. He couldn't help affectionately  tightening his arm around the other's man's waist.

One could listen to that voice go on all day. Ears did not complain about what the mind accepted as oddly analytical perceptions of fire and symbolism. "Though my year is all the better already for knowing you." Johann added and Balfour glanced at him abruptly, unable to distinguish his companion's expression.

Or to understand his own. Fear, perhaps.

When they stopped it was hard to tell where the leader of their pack had disappeared to in the dark. Only the huskies circled, leashes coiling and uncoiling with one another. Forgive? He didn't understand what had to be forgiven, and leaned in even closer so that their temples nearly touched.

In the shadow of night it didn't seem too great a sin to indulge. "I like the words." Balfour ignored the tugging at the leash, bringing their faces together and pressing his lips to Johann's brow. "You're the best surprise I've had all year, did you know that? I hadn't see you coming at all." He shut his eyes and kissed the crest of a cheekbone.

Stayed there for a moment, gaining a sense of their alternating breathes - the contrast of the sharp night air against their collective warmth. Autumn leaves against sweat and soap. It felt agonising in the best way possible. It made him want to grab the wizard by the sides of his face, kiss deeply and drunkenly. Take it all in at once.

But he was sober. The light, teasing intimacy of their touch was enough, more than enough.

"Don't hold back." Balfour spoke into the meagre space between them. "With words, I mean. It suits you. Eloquence. It suits me, too." His lips curled into a playful smile against Johann's skin. "I find it terribly disarming."

For the third time that night, Johann quietly wished their canine companions were not with them. It was not that he had anything particular against dogs, or their company normally, quite the opposite. (Whiskey was rather soothing to pat absentmindedly while reading the papers if he lingered.)

It was more that the bed had been occupied, that they had needed to traipse out into the autumn night, and that his arm was being tugged intermittently by one of the three as Balfour's lips met his forehead. He had wanted to kiss Balfour when he had stepped into his path and brought them all to a stop right there, but he'd felt too pushy, eager all of a sudden when faced with that direct gaze.

He didn't mean to get stage-fright, not that it was exactly, just the nearest he could think to describe the feeling. It was the underlying fear that on meeting the Spectres things might fall apart, that it would change what they had. Though, then begged the question what did they have?

Johann had very little to compare to in his own life - a flatshare with a girl who would describe him as her boyfriend even though he never thought of her as more than convenient company, a sham of an engagement to help a friend whose life he later ruined for the involvement, a secretive first relationship with a healer who was meant to be treating him. Whatever it was, he was determined not to let it go, however fleeting. He couldn't even comprehend broaching that subject with Balfour, and so here he was fighting a physical instinct to seek affection from a startlingly handsome wizard, while petrified he was doing it all wrong.

Johann's eyes closed, a smile curled his lips for the kiss alone, only growing at Balfour's soft words, a flash of teeth. It was words like that which calmed the panic underneath, though Balfour didn't know it.
"You and me both." He agreed, opening his eyes instinctively as he felt Balfour move and turned his neck to lean into the kiss of his right cheek. Dipping his head, he sought out a neck amongst a coat collar, enjoying the familiar scent of Balfour which he caught on his clothes when he returned to his own space after being entwined. He hadn't realised quite how chilly he'd become until he felt how warm Balfour was against his cool skin. England felt like midwinter in comparison to the trip to the Caymans, even if he had been there mere hours.

"Don't hold back." Balfour advised him, as if he had been reading Johann's very thoughts a moment ago. "I find it terribly disarming."

"Good," Johann replied deeply, sounding more assured than he felt and rather spoiling the illusion of eloquence on his part with such a bland response, "I am glad they do." He kissed what little he could find of Balfour's neck, left arm pulling them together closely, for there were no eloquent words that could explain the longing he felt to gain leave of their canine companions. He wanted nothing more than to be against the other wizard and shut up the cacophony in his head.

"I have to have something in return for the way you pull the carpet out from under my feet and leave me speechless." He continued, as his lips finished a line up his lover's neck to just below Balfour's right ear. He let out a deep sigh, shoulders dropping. "I can't help myself," he replied, a gentle shake of his curls as he took a pace backwards, releasing the grip on Balfour, adjusting the lead in his right hand. "I really don't mean to be such a f-ing tease." He frowned at himself, genuinely apologetic as he realised, "Come on, let's walk the damned dogs before I get too distracted and drop the lead. 'Sorry Ira, lost your prized dog because I was too busy pinning Balfour to a tree by the Serpentine...'"

He took another step back, running into said dog who shot round him, wrapping his legs in the lead and gestured to his predicament as evidence.
"Just look what you do to me, Spectre!"

He wished he could save the small, sweet moments like these. Tuck them away in a corner of his heart to revisit on darker nights - but you can't relive a lovely thing for the first time. That was what made it so sweet.

If Johann knew how much it thrilled and terrified him to have another person's lips, another's teeth so close against his throat... well. Who knew what would wander through that impenetrable mind. Balfour tilted his jaw back, his lips parting unconsciously as he allowed them to draw nearer. Black silhouettes in the shadow. It was too easy to lose himself in this. How could anyone do enough good to deserve this? When Johann stepped back, fully admitting to be the utter tease that he was, Balfour took a moment to appreciate the benefit of distance.

Of course he was stupidly grinning. ""Just look what you do to me, Spectre!"

Being called by his surname reminded him of the days to come, though, and the grin faded marginally. Samhain, the clan. Work ahead. He didn't just want it to be meeting the family. Plenty of people had met his family. Perhaps he could surprise his companion with something else.

"I'd like to see you try pinning me to a tree." Balfour commented in a playful voice before glancing at Ivoire, clicking his tongue. The Husky looked up blankly and then abruptly turned around, uncoiling the leash while Sangre watched patiently. Good boy. "We can lock them out of the bedroom later, if you'd like..." his eyes glimmered impishly.

Sharing one's living arrangements with a gathering of creatures was agreeable when one has to spend many nights with little else company besides paperwork but they did cause minor inconveniences to intimate endeavour.

A bark in the distance caused Balfour to turn his head, and he spotted the distinct shape of a German Shepherd a street ahead, where the lights were working as well as they might in this part of town. He looked back at Johann as he slipped his arm away to take the wizard's hand again.

"Come. I don't think Ira would rue missing Ivoire's company as much as I would yours." His hand felt warm compared to Johann's, whose chilly fingers were in great need of warming. "You're a tease but you're my tease, don't you know it." Balfour smiled warmly and made a silent promise to word his feelings in a less carnal way next time.

Johann wasn't the only one who couldn't help himself.

"Ha! Well, there's plenty up in Scotland, I'll just have to pick a good one." Johann chuckled in response to Balfour's challenge about a tree. The lead unwrapped from around his legs and he stepped aside, untangling the last so they could get on.

"… if you'd like…"
"I would." Johann replied without any hesitation, and grinned at the look in Balfour's eye, realising with a laugh that it had been a somewhat rhetorical question.

Whiskey brought them both back to their senses with a bark. Hand in hand they set off down the street, Johann returning a squeeze before entwining their fingers. The wind clawed at their ankles a moment, dragging leaves along the pavement.

"I wouldn't want to be anyone else's, that's for sure." He agreed and gave a wink. His step had found a new energy, casting off the tiredness from his hours of travelling to enjoy the night air, to finish walking the dogs while fighting the urge to rush.


At long last the dogs were closed away to roam the flat with the cats and newts beneath the floating jellyfish. No more work, travel nor distractions could intervene. Then finally, in the quiet of the night, he gently laid his head upon a scarred chest, and Balfour's soft breathing and steady heartbeat lulled him to a shallow sleep, safe beneath a heavy arm.


End