For the first time since Cain could remember, anticipation curled warmly in his chest. He didn’t want to admit it, even to himself, but he was actually looking forward to this. To him. 

Gabriel. 

The name alone was enough to send a small tremor through his chest. 

Cain had known hundreds of men. Rich ones, broken ones, the ones who pretended not to need comfort but begged for it anyway. None of them ever made his pulse race quite like this. 

When they reached his room, Cain pushed the door open and stepped inside first. He crossed to the couch, the silk of his shirt catching the candlelight with each movement. Without a word, he sank into the cushions, one leg crossed smoothly over the other. For a heartbeat, he just sat there, composed, though the faintest tremor in his hands betrayed him. 

He glanced up at Gabriel, who stood by the door, half-shadowed by the flickering firelight. “You… can come in.” 

Gabriel’s mouth curved faintly, and Cain’s pulse stuttered in response. 

Gabriel entered the room, closing the door behind him before shrugging off his coat with slow precision. The movement was unhurried and deliberate, as though he knew Cain’s eyes were on him. 

Cain’s gaze trailed the length of him, the way the light slid along the fabric of his shirt, the faint tension in his shoulders. He watched until Gabriel reached inside his coat. 

Then Cain froze.

For a brief moment, a flicker of confusion crossed his face. Gabriel noticed, of course. “I assure you,” Gabriel murmured, stepping closer, “it’s not what you’re thinking.” 

He placed something on the table between them. 

A book.

A book as dark as spilled ink with a worn-out spine. 

Cain blinked, the faintest crease appearing between his brows. “You brought me a book?” 

Gabriel’s smile deepened in amusement. “Disappointed?” 

Cain recovered quickly, lounging back in his seat with a smirk. “Between the book and the coin, this is nearly the most I’ve ever been given without being told what it’s for.’

That was the thing with rented bodies. If a courtesan was lucky enough, patrons might spoil them with small tokens of appreciation, but nothing was ever without condition. Something was always expected in return. 

Gabriel chuckled. “Then I suppose I should take pride in being the exception.”

“It seems like you already do,” Cain said dryly. 

Gabriel’s eyes softened. “I meant what I said before, Solaris. I didn’t come here for what you think.” 

Cain tilted his head. “And what do I think?”

Gabriel only smiled again, with that same infuriating, knowing smile, and sat beside him. “You’ll figure it out soon enough.” 

He picked up the book and turned it so Cain could see the title stamped faintly in gold. 

Les Fleurs Du Mal. 

Cain reached for it, fingertips brushing against Gabriel’s hand as he took it. “The Flowers of Evil,” he murmured. “How fitting.” 

Gabriel’s voice was quiet, thoughtful. “Baudelaire wrote about beauty and rot. Desire and decay, how the two can live in the same breath.” 

Cain smiled faintly, thumbing through the fragile pages. “So… you thought of me.” 

Gabriel's eyes flickered, still unreadable. “Perhaps I did.” 

Cain shifted positions, clearly feeling more at ease. He curled his legs beneath him on the couch, drawing the book closer. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, the weight of the gesture, the meaning tucked inside it. Men gave him trinkets all the time. Bracelets, rings, necklaces; things that were meant to glitter, not last. But this? This was different. 

Books were intimate. They required time, attention and thought. 

He glanced up from the pages, and for a moment, Gabriel was watching him. Really watching him. Not like a patron observing a performer, but like someone memorising a dream before it disappears. 

“I’ve never read this one,” Cain admitted softly. “But I think I’d like to.” 

“Then consider it yours,” Gabriel said. 

They fell into easy conversation after that, about poetry, words, and the strange, quiet power they carried. Gabriel mentioned his childhood again, and in that moment, Cain couldn’t help the flicker of sadness in his eyes.

 Cain hadn’t been able to read once, not because he wasn’t allowed to, but because he’d never been given the chance. Gabriel, on the other hand, wasn’t permitted to. That was the difference. To be denied something within your reach, to feel knowledge brushing your fingertips but be forbidden to touch it, that was its own kind of cruelty. 

Maybe, Cain thought, they weren’t so different after all. 

“Scripture tells you what to think,” Cain said, watching the firelight play across the pages. “Poetry only asks you to feel.” 

Gabriel nodded. “That’s what frightens people about it.” 

Cain looked at him then. He looked at the man who’d just given him a book of sins disguised as flowers. He wondered how much Gabriel had felt in his life, and how much he’d buried just to survive it. 

For a long while, neither of them spoke. The fire crackled softly, and the room felt too small for everything left unsaid. 

Cain traced the edge of a page with his fingertip. “You know,” he said quietly, “for someone who walks around pretending he’s made of stone, you have a strange fondness for beautiful things.” 

Gabriel’s gaze held his. “Maybe that’s why I’m here.” 

Cain’s throat went dry. He forced a smirk. “You always know what to say, don’t you?”

“Not always,” Gabriel’s voice was soft now, almost tender. “Only when it matters.” 

Hours passed while the flames dimmed to soft embers. Any silence between them had grown comfortable; intimate in a way neither dared to name. 

Cain rose at last, smoothing the creases from his trousers, while his gaze was fixed on Gabriel. He didn’t want to say “time’s up” again. It felt… wrong. 

Gabriel stood up and slipped into his coat. At the door, he paused. Just for a breath. Then he turned, golden eyes catching the candlelight, while the air between them still hummed with everything unspoken. 

He took a few steps and reached out, gently brushing a strand of hair away from Cain’s face. The touch lingered, his fingers tracing down until they found Cain’s chin. 

Cain didn’t move.

For a moment, the air was heavy. 

One breath between them, one heartbeat shared.

Gabriel leaned in slowly, close enough that Cain could feel the warmth of his breath before he felt his lips. When they finally met, the kiss was slow and deliberate, as though Gabriel were testing the shape of him, learning rather than claiming. It was nothing like the hungry kisses Cain was used to. 

Gabriel’s mouth was warm, firm enough to be felt, and gentle enough to be trusted. He lingered there, coaxing, until Cain’s breath stuttered and his lips parted without quite meaning to. Gabriel followed the invitation with quiet patience, the brush of his tongue slow and exploratory, drawing a soft sound from Cain before he could stop himself. 

His hand moved from Cain’s chin, lingering along the line of his jaw before threading into his hair, fingers tightening just enough to hold him there. The other found Cain’s waist, thumb pressing him closer, steadying him as the kiss deepened and slowed. 

The world narrowed to warmth and closeness as Gabriel kissed him like he meant to remember this forever. 

When Gabriel finally pulled back, it was only by a couple of inches. Cain’s lashes fluttered, his mouth still parted, heart racing as though it had been touched directly. Gabriel stayed close, forehead nearly brushing his, breath uneven now too, as if the kiss had undone him just the same.

The silence between them felt almost like a vow. 

Gabriel smiled faintly, his thumb ghosting over the corner of Cain’s mouth before he stepped away. 

“Goodnight,” he murmured. 

Cain didn’t speak, only watched him reach for the door. And then, just as Gabriel’s hand brushed the handle, Cain’s voice broke the silence. 

“There’s another way,” he said quietly. 

Gabriel paused, turning slightly. “Another way?” 

Cain met his eyes. “Earlier, when you said you wished there were a better way to ask for my time.” He hesitated, then continued. “I thought of something.” 

Gabriel arched an eyebrow, curiosity flickering. “Go on.” 

Cain exhaled. “There’s a hidden stairwell behind the east wing that leads out to the garden. The lock on the door is barely a lock. I’m sure you can figure it out. If I move the lilies from my windowsill, it means I’m alone. No one will see you.” 

The truth was, Cain had long since mastered every corner of the Praecia Veil. He knew its heartbeat, the creak of the floorboards outside the east wing, the hour Madam made her nightly rounds, the moments when the whole house seemed to exhale and fall into sleep. There was a time he even planned his escape. He’d mapped the corridors in his mind and rehearsed the timing until it felt like instinct. 

He could’ve done it too. Slipped away under the cover of rain and silence, and by dawn no one would’ve noticed he was gone. By the time they did, he’d be far from Seviel, somewhere warm, maybe, where his name meant nothing and his body belonged to him again.

But that was the problem, wasn’t it?

Freedom sounded lovely until he had to imagine what came after. 

He’d told Claudia once, in a rare moment of weakness, that the world beyond the Veil would kill them faster than this one ever could. Out there, he wouldn’t know how to survive. Here, at least, he’d learned how to pretend. 

Gabriel’s gaze lingered on him for a long moment. Then, slowly, a smile ghosted over his lips. “You realise that sounds suspiciously like an invitation.” 

“Call it what you want.” 

Gabriel’s eyes glinted with something dark, something almost fond. “And if I take you up on it?” 

“Then I suppose I’ll just have to let you in.” 

Gabriel’s laugh was quiet, low in his throat. “You make it sound easy.”

“It isn’t.” Cain’s voice softened. “But I trust you.” 

That stopped Gabriel for half a breath. He nodded once and slipped out into the hall, closing the door behind him. 

Cain stood there for a long moment, staring at the door. His pulse was still racing, his lips still tingling from the kiss. 

When he finally collapsed onto the bed, the room felt impossibly large.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he muttered under his breath.

It was reckless and stupid to trust a man like that. 

And yet…

He glanced at the book resting on the table, the gold lettering catching the last whisper of firelight. 

Les Fleurs du Mal.

He smiled faintly to himself. 

Maybe, for once, keeping a secret wouldn’t feel like sin.

Maybe it would feel like something all his own. 

༻𐫱༺

Les Fleurs de la Chair: The Flowers of Flesh 

Les Fleurs du Mal: Includes nearly all of Charles Baudelaire’s poetry, written from 1840 until he died in 1867. Though it was extremely controversial upon publication, with six of its poems censored due to their immorality, it is now considered a major work of French poetry. The poems in this book deal with themes relating to decadence and eroticism, particularly focusing on suffering and its relationship to original sin, disgust toward evil and oneself, obsession with death, and aspiration toward an ideal world.