"Jamesie," Lord Gloria began, sternly, twirling the telephone cord idly about his index finger. "I distinctly recall telling you to leave the two of them alone."

He paused to listen, casting an exasperated glance upon the unconscious boy draped out across his couch. He had never seen anyone take quite so long to come out of a faint.

"I absolutely will not. No - no, there's nothing for it now. Just find somewhere to put them, for Christ's sake. And everything had bloody well better be straightened out by the time I'm down for coffee. I just - I just don't even know, Jamesie. I'll settle with you later." He set the receiver quietly into the cradle, planted his hands on his hips, and tried very hard not to despair of ever setting things aright.

The stupid, jealous child had gone and shot Gabriel's friends, which made things terribly sticky. They had been his leverage, and good leverage at that: if Gabriel hadn't been so very skittish, he would have been having far too much fun to have even picked up the phone. Now ... he had nothing, and, finding physical force a distasteful distraction from the sort of entertainment Gabriel had been ready to provide him, he was at a loss as to how he would even begin to salvage his evening.

The boy could not be allowed to know, of course. That would serve for a few hours. After that, well, perhaps he'd just pin it on James, which was hardly unfair, considering. He sat impatiently on one arm of his sofa, watching Gabriel's motionless face. A few hours were, really, all he needed - and if Gabriel would just wake up, they promised to be worth almost all of the trouble he had gone through to arrange them.

It was amazing how fast the boy had guessed. He seemed incapable of such morbid assumptions, but here was proof that his trusting features hid at least some degree of worldly intuition. Caesar Gabriel was not, apparently, an idiot. Not ten minutes after catching his breath, he had been absolutely certain.

And now he was crying again, burying his delicate face in his escort's elbow as he was shown kindly but firmly from the room. The loss of his friends had stricken him with the expected force; and while Lord Gloria would have preferred to have kept him in the dark for a few months' time, he found the boy's excessively tender display of grief gratifyingly pure. By summer, Gabriel might have developed some sense of comfort in his new home to mitigate his despair - but now, in the depths of winter and not four hours after being delivered to an unfamiliar island, his anguish was perfect.

Lord Gloria thought that it was beautiful, really. Had it not been for the noise, he might well have kept him by his side to watch.