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.

He felt a bit like someone who just stumbled on a step - heart racing, relieved. Cepheus answered plainly and with an air of truth. In a way it made Lyra and, by extension, Mortimer Gamp, seem more human. Less frightening.
 
            "... I mean. When we meet… if.. we meet."

Breakfast grew heavier in his stomach and he reached for his glass, to allow himself a second. Just earlier in the week he told his family about Cepheus after the road trip[1] with Nemo. The news hadn't gone down smooth as butter but it hadn't been explosive either. Nothing he wanted to worry Ceph over.

"Drinks," he heard himself say before getting a grip on his words. "Uh, I mean, we ought to get drinks at Stardust with her and Edgar one evening. Whenever."

Virgil licked his lips, swiping up a bit of maple cream with the crust of his French toast. "I've actually decided to step back from theatre stuff for a while," he offered. He remembered Cepheus asking if he was meant to be rehearsing today, when they were speaking earlier that morning.

It had been a quiet, practical decision. He had his fingers in too many pies.

"Just until things are quieter, you know," he swallowed and suddenly narrowed his gaze at Ceph. "Do... do things ever get quieter at the Ministry, though?"

1.	28th Feb - Baby, You Can Drive Me

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?” 

He swallowed the last of his French Toast, trying not to show relief when Cepheus said there wasn't any rush to meet Edgar and Angela. Virgil hadn't wanted to seem reluctant but it was good to know a meeting wasn't directly expected. It gave his family more time to grow comfortable with the idea of him dating someone so much older.

Ceph's advice for level nine came as a surprise - he kept forgetting about his boyfriend's personal proximity to Mysteries.

"I'll be careful," the blonde replied, with heat rising to his cheeks at the simple compliment of being called pretty, "to always make time for good food. And music. And flowers."

Virgil couldn't imagine life without time for music, especially, and he tried not to think about all the things he was busy doing on Nine. That was work. This was pleasure.

           “More coffee?”

"No," he turned to face Cepheus properly at the breakfast counter. "More you, please."

The younger wizard grinned a little, though there was a shy tilt to it. Like he wasn't sure how to make the common demands of a lover. "I've finished all my cream so you'll just need to use your imagination to lick it off me."

He lightly touched Ceph's knee, drumming a tune with his fingers.

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.

He giggled at each playful kiss - gasping a little when Ceph's mouth, which he knew to taste of syrup and cream, pressed against his neck.

They didn't have anything to do today. Virgil was suddenly delighted by that idea - by the intoxicating freedom of it, hours stretched ahead with no urgent demand of time or thought. A different kind or urgency replaced it instead; in the hands clasping him by the hips, in his own diffident fiddling of his boyfriend's waistband.

            “Would you like me to take care of that for you, darling?”

Virgil, who could be terrifically crude and sarcastic around most people, simply nodded and allowed his lips to smile as widely as they wished. His cheeks were flushed. He was a touch more shy than usual; his confidences in Cepheus earlier that morning made him feel raw still.

"You'll spoil me..." he intoned with theatrical earnestness in order to conceal a fragility that would be impossible to hide at a later point of their embraces. "But yes. Please, Cepheus."

And he forgot all about his worries, his concerns. Virgil gave himself up for the day with no other aim than to be teased and occupied and utterly enjoyed.